SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer Waccamaw vs. BE: Goal or Foul?

We keep talking about the keeper as if she is the "victim" in this or any similar matchup--the assumption seems to be that in a 50-50 situation, the keeper has the right to go to the ball and possess it, and the attacking player has a duty to retreat to allow her to do so without contact. You talk about the "helpless" keeper, but I think this is a faulty assumption; in my experience, a well-trained keeper going after a loose ball is anything but "helpless." In the case of this video, the keeper went in knees-first with her body upright and exposed, and did not take a stance to protect herself from impact. In many cases, though, it's the keeper who controls the moment and point of impact, and the forward who ends up doing unplanned acrobatics.

Here's an alternate situation: an attacking player gets a breakaway and is dribbling in fast on a 1v1 with the keeper. To prevent the easy shot, the keeper waits for a slightly longer touch, charges out and meets her at about the PK spot, slides to ground with her body between ball and goal and wraps the ball up right in front of the forward's foot. The forward can't stop in time, contacts the ball at the keeper's midsection, trips, and face-plants in the grass.

Did the keeper commit a foul, or was she going after a ball that wasn't under control? Did the forward commit a foul for not pulling back to avoid the keeper as soon as she began her charge, since it was obvious where the keeper was going? Was it a great save, or should there be a card and a PK awarded?

Being at the game and a devout Waccamaw supporter, the situation is as simple as this.

The keeper made a good play to make the block but the forward did nothing wrong as she was going for the ball in an attempt to score. Neither player did anything illegal and it was just unfortunate that the ball rebounded out to another Bishop England player. She placed her shot well and it turned out to be the game winner. Had the keeper been able to get right back up after the collision she still would not have saved the shot. In the end, it's unfortunate but completely legal and the referee made the correct decision.

chief, so basically, you are assuming you know how the keeper in the video feels about the play - for all you know, she might even disagree with you...

Just like this case it is a hard call, but I would be on the side of saying to keeper placed her self in that position by diving on the ball so I would not blame the fwd for the contact. If the keep is only playing the ball and not the keepers legs then I would say keep made clean play. If keep went feet first at the fwds legs then I would likely say foul was commited by keeper.
As I said before I would tend to err on the keepers side because in the box they have the "right of way". If the player managed to tap ball under/over keeper in you hypothetical then made the same amount of contact we see in video I would say no foul (for fwd) becasue keeper created the contact with her play. In the video as far as I can tell the keeper did not create the contact, had the fwd hit the keeps arm on her way by then maybe no foul but instead the fwd ends up T-boning keeper.

As for your point about the keeps positioning I agree she could have done a better job, but I do not want to critize the effort to much. In a clinical way I am sure it could be broken down by for errors but I would leave that to her coach. I have seen several keepers who have "punished" fwds for just such a charge, without being trying to be sexist I would say most boys keepers look to clober a fwd who offers the chance for this kind of contact (Elbows and Knees are often the first part of a keeper a fwd will meet).

In fact I saw a simiular play this year where the keeper just went for the kick and "knockout" blow on the fwd. Ball got booted away out of bounds and fwd got to meet ground with keeper on top. Ref was seen talking??/cautioning?? both as they got up .
Hey I guess if this was easy and cut and dried it would'nt be nearly as fun
Hopefully they can meet again next year.

Just jumping in to add a thought. I was once told by a high level assessor (national level) that there is no such thing as a "dangerous play" once contact is made. If contact is made, it immediately becomes a direct free kick for kicking, holding, etc.
As for whether or not this was a foul, I will not judge. BUT, why, when the keeper didn't get up and was grabbing her knee (an indication of a serious injury) was play not immediately stopped for injury with an indirect free kick given to BE because they had possession after the attempted clearance?

Not to take anything away from player safety--I have taken issue before with how long it took for an official to stop play after a player went down and didn't move--but imagine a game where a team could immediately stop a dangerous scoring threat simply by falling down and clutching a knee?

(And yes, I'm playing devil's advocate again--there's nothing that frustrates me more than watching a ball go into the net when my goalkeeper is on the ground after getting bulldozed--but gotta look at it from all points objectively. If the officials immediately blew the play dead every time someone went down (especially in front of the goal), how much more flopping would be done to take away advantage?)

As a player, sometimes you need a minute or a couple seconds to stretch out the knee or ankle you smacked against the other player's--which, for the record, hurts like a bitca and may take a moment to get over, but isn't usually worth coming out for--or to catch your breath. You could end up with a lot of pointless stoppages when it's just someone taking their time to roll up to their feet. Waiting to see if they're just reacting and then pop up or seriously in pain is usually the most logical way to handle that.

However, I do have to say that if the ref is taking too long to call an obviously injured player, growing up, it was considered the players' responsibility to knock the ball out of bounds as a courtesy.

Agreed...what hurts initially isn't always a serious injury...sometimes it just takes a minute to shake it off. With sportsmanlike teams, if they realize a player isn't getting up and isn't being attended to by the officials, the ball will be kicked out. Prominent example and compliments to the Stratford High girls last year when we played them--I had a player go down hard and not move. The center ref did not stop play, which was in our defensive third, and yelled "play on" when he was directed to the girl who still had not moved. The entire Stratford team simply stopped and refused to go to the ball despite advantage and repeated calls of "play on" until we finally got a whistle...great example of sportsmanship and class.