“Collina’s heirs” grumble: When handball it goes haywire

“Collina’s heirs” grumble
Handball goes haywire

By Alex Feuerherdt

The topic of handball in the Bundesliga is heating up again: Werder and Union are awarded dubious penalties, Hertha, on the other hand, gets nothing. This is not only a problem in the match day context, the clear line is missing, even with the video assistants.

The rule holders of the International Football Association Board (Ifab) have modified the handball rule twice in the recent past. In the text of the rules in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons, an attempt was made to cover almost every individual case and almost every detail in sometimes cumbersome and confusing formulations in order to be able to better distinguish between “punishable” and “not punishable” in handball games. More important than the question of intention was the position of the hand or arm – which could theoretically be better determined. Nevertheless, this reduction in the discretion of the impartial judges did not necessarily lead to greater clarity in the assessment, and many did not find the new formulation and interpretation to be fairer or more practical either.

So the Ifab changed the handball rule again for the 2021/22 season, the rule text was turned inside out again and significantly streamlined. A handball is punishable, to put it in a nutshell, if the player concerned either touches the ball intentionally by bringing his hand or arm to the ball, or unnaturally (!) enlarges his body surface by making his hands or arms wider , than is required for normal body movement at that moment. That means: A handball with a protruding arm is not always punishable. Essentially, this returned the handball rule as it was before 2019, and also gave referees more discretion.

Questionable penalty for Werder

Nevertheless, there are still often discussions about the evaluation of handballs – and about when a decision in this regard is so intolerable that the video assistant has to intervene. Where there is a gray area and there is therefore room for interpretation, it is generally not easy to always follow a clear line. Nevertheless, it is striking and worthy of criticism how different the referees’ standards were when evaluating handballs on this sixth day of the Bundesliga match. It all started on Friday evening in the game between Werder Bremen and FC Augsburg (0:1), when referee Martin Petersen awarded the hosts a hand penalty in injury time.

After a cross into the guests’ penalty area, Bremen’s Marvin Ducksch shot the ball at his opponent Maximilian Bauer’s right upper arm from close range. The Augsburger’s arm was a bit away from his upper body, but that was due to the normal and typical defense movement in this situation and thus no unnatural broadening of the body surface to stop or deflect the ball. Bauer could not be accused of intention either, because he did not lead his arm to the ball. But even after the decision was checked by VAR Guido Winkmann, the penalty remained, which Ducksch finally missed.

Even more dubious penalty for Union Berlin

No less questionable was the penalty awarded by referee Benjamin Cortus to the guests after eight minutes in Sunday afternoon’s match between 1. FC Köln and 1. FC Union Berlin (0-1). Robin Knoche had headed the ball in the home team’s penalty area from close range on Luca Kilian’s left elbow, although the Cologne native had his back to Knoche, so he couldn’t see the ball at all. On the other hand, at that moment, after a futile jump to the ball, Kilian was in the process of moving down and had held his arm in a way that was normal and typical for this movement. So he hadn’t expanded in an unnatural way and therefore didn’t accept touching the ball with his arm.

Nevertheless, the decision stood in this case after the review by VAR Markus Schmidt, but Jordan Siebatcheu was also unable to convert the penalty. “The boy has his back to the ball and gets it on his upper arm,” Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart criticized the referee’s decision. According to the rules, “a certain intention” is required for a handball to be considered punishable, he said, only to then add angrily: “That’ll be a joke. You don’t have to explain anything to me, it’s just ridiculous. “

Two questions from the referee

However, there was no penalty in the 82nd minute of the game Hertha BSC – Bayer 04 Leverkusen (2-2) on Saturday when Leverkusen’s Odilon Kossounou tipped the ball a few meters from his own goal from a shot by Jean-Paul Boetius from a central position and deflected with his right arm at close range. Two questions had to be answered, said the referee Benjamin Brand after the final whistle in an interview with the broadcaster Sky: “Once: was it an unnatural movement of the arm? And: was it intentional?” He could answer both questions in the negative after watching the television pictures, so he sticks to his decision. Kossounou held his arm “in a normal way”. It was therefore correct that VAR Matthias Jöllenbeck did not intervene.

A similar handball was committed by Willi Orban from Leipzig in a game at Eintracht Frankfurt in his own penalty area a week ago. Referee Felix Brych, like his colleague Brand, did not award a penalty, and VAR did not intervene either. In both cases, the respective player did not put his arm in the path of the ball, so from a technical point of view, he did not commit an intentional handball. However, both Orban and Kossounou increased their body surface by holding their arms – whether they did it in an unnatural way or whether this position could still be evaluated as the result of a situationally normal movement, as Brand and Brych did, is a subject of excellent debate.

No clear line from the referees

Benjamin Brand said Kossounou’s arm “was only taken backwards by the momentum of the ball” and, unlike the frontal perspective, the behind-the-goal camera actually gives that impression. What probably fueled the excitement in Berlin was the fact that the Leverkusen player prevented a goal with his handball. But that – Benjamin Brand also pointed out – plays no role in the question of whether a handball is to be rated as punishable. Strange as it may seem, an unintentional hand ball by the goalscorer on or just before a goal is scored will always result in the goal being annulled. On the other hand, an unintentional hand ball that prevents a goal is not punishable. That’s what the rules say.

Ultimately, there are at least better arguments for Brand’s decision than for the trade penalties in Bremen and Cologne. If you compare the three decisions with each other, however, it is also clear: If you take the penalty kicks for Werder and Union as a benchmark – which is not a good idea – Hertha should have given a penalty. In any case, the rule interpretations did not fit together here, a line was not recognizable. And if you take a look at the VAR as a review body, it can be said that it would have been better if he had recommended an on-field review for penalty kicks for Werder and Union. Because classifying these decisions as clearly and obviously wrong would have been justified in any case.

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