Does anybody actually know what the handball rules are?
Sure, the rules exist, and are written down in an official capacity. But there always seems to be debate anyway.
Case in point: Saturday night’s game between the LA Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders.
Seattle took a two-goal lead in the first half, but the Galaxy pulled one back in the second half and were putting on tons of pressure late as they pressed for an equalizer.
As the game entered its final minutes, Mark Delgado received the ball on the side of Seattle’s box and put in a cross. With his arms behind his back but his elbows extended out, Sounders defender Nouhou blocked the cross with his elbow in the box.
The Galaxy furiously protested but no handball was called, and there was no VAR review either.
The game ended in a 2-1 Seattle win.
Here is the call Vanney is talking about #LAGalaxy #MLS https://t.co/GVUmsp5vsr pic.twitter.com/27lTFRQBby
— Alex Ruiz (@AlxRuiz15) April 2, 2023
Vanney was less then enthused at his post-game press conference, standing up to demonstrate Nouhou’s arm positioning while explaining why, in his opinion, the Galaxy were robbed of a penalty.
“This is in the silhouette,” Vanney said with his arms at his side.
“This is not in the silhouette, this is a handball,” he said, arms on his hips as he approximated (and exaggerated) Nouhou’s arm position.
“Three games in a row, these guys don’t know what handball is. It’s getting to be obscene,” Vanney said. “Honestly, it’s ridiculous. And the game is about margins. They have VAR. They’re the only entity in the entire game that gets a ‘redo.’ None of us else get a redo. They get a redo. And it’s three times they can’t get it right. That’s their job. That’s their job.”
The “silhouette” that Vanney referenced is part of a 2019 update to the handball rules from IFAB (International Football Association Board), which stated that a handball would be awarded if “the ball touches a player’s hand/arm which has made their silhouette unnaturally bigger.”
ESPN rules expert Dale Johnson added in a 2020 thread on Twitter:
It’s all about the silhouette, the area of the body. If the arms are not within the silhouette, no matter what movement you are making, they are considered to be making the body “unnaturally bigger”. Your natural shape does not have your arms away from the body.
Did Vanney have a point? That may depend on who you ask. What isn’t up for debate, though, is the Galaxy are near the bottom of the Western Conference table in the early part of 2023, still looking for their first win after five games.
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