Ball hitting the hands

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PowerSpurs

PowerSpurs

Well-Known Member
Jun 15, 2011
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The incident with Sterling in the Liverpool - Blackburn match showed a problem with the laws. As the ball was falling it hit Sterling's arm accidentally and that diverted it away from the Blackburn player's attempt to shoot such that he couldn't avoid making contact with Sterling. Surely that shouldn't be a foul: It wasn't a handball offence but you shouldn't get an advantage like that from an accidental handball.
 
Agree, to me there should be 3 types of handball:

Deliberate
Accidental, advantage gained
Accidental, no advantage gained

And it could be a good excuse to dust off the rarely used indirect free-kick to level it out:
Deliberate -> Free kick/pen
Accidental with advantage -> Indirect free kick
Accidental without advantage -> play on
 
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I don't know how they work out cards for handball nowdays, either. It's weird.
Mario Gomez committed about four in the first leg of our tie against Fiorentina and was penalised for all of them, IIRC.
Somehow that didn't add up to a booking, though.
A defender doing the same thing wouldn't have been on the pitch.
 
I haven't seen the incident but from the description, I think it's such a rare occurance that it should be given as a foul to Liverpool. Sometimes a foul is cynical, sometimes, clumsy and sometimes you can do everything right and just be unlucky. Unless there was intent, enough time to get his hand out of the way or if it his arm was well away from his body then to my understanding Sterling cannot be penalised because there's no offence. With the foul, no matter how unlucky it still is a foul. I think a big slice of leniency should be used if it would normally be an either a red or yellow card though.
 
It's not an issue unless there's intent. Otherwise the hand is no different to any other part of the body, is it? A fortunate/unfortunate deflection off a knee, leg, back, head or foot is just part of the game. The hand is no different unless there is intent.

What follows has to be judged on its own merits. We see good tackles turn into horrendous fouls because of the slightest deflection of the ball. Refs have to use common sense and discretion.
 
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Handball should be handball should be handball. It could be such a simple rule.

I can't go along with "accidentally". It just doesn't work. I accidentally potted the white ball. I accidentally threw the ball forward. I accidentally touched the ball with my hand? It doesn't work.
 
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Inda said:
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I hadn't seen that and it looks entirely deliberate, to me.
Sterling looks at the Blackburn player, then watches the ball's flight until it hits his arm.
 
Bit of a silly example because as he plays for Liverpool that means its not handball
 
PowerSpurs said:
He's just swinging his arms while running isn't he? He doesn't make any other movement.
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One of the things referees consider(or should consider) is how long the player has to get his hand/arm out of the way. He might not have moved his arm to the ball deliberately but he had plenty of time to judge the flight of the ball and decide to keep his arm down. It's like when a player runs behind another player and there's a clash of legs, it's not necessarily intent but there's opportunity for them to get out of the way and they don't so it's a foul.

I think that's freekick for handball and the linesman should be spotting it. As it happens he may have thought the ball deviated because the Blackburn player got it which would have led him to not give anything(I'm assuming nothing was given). Actually, is it in Liverpool's area, rather than Blackburn's? I can understand not giving a penalty for handball, better to err on the side of caution.

I must admit I was expecting a scenario more similar to one we had against Chelsea a few years ago. Parker made a great challenge on Cole down the left but the ball rebounded of Cole's arm keeping it in play and setting Cole free to cross in for a goal. I was angry that it wasn't given as a handball at the time but I've changed my mind sine then as it was just a bit of misfortune for us and Cole had no way of being able avoid the contact with his arm as it was such close range.
 
It's in Liverpool's area so handball would be a penalty. The linesman immediately flagged for a free kick to Liverpool as he spotted the follow through on Sterling!

I don't think the Laws either do or should require you to move your arms away from the ball to minimise the chance of contact. If you are running your arms will swing.
 
I am now convinced that it was deliberate and should have been a penalty, the running movement of his arm in the stride before is quite different, and he watches the ball on to his hand, incredibly difficult to make that call in real time though
 
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