Every Euro article in the media has been debating whether or not Ruud van Nistelrooy was offside when he scored the initial goal for Holland in their 3-0 triumph over Italy in the opening round.

Whilst the scoreline would suggest that it was merely one of the three scored by the Dutch, in truth this goal was the reason why Italy conceded the next two. Being down early in the game made Italy give up their defensive game plan, as they had to try to equalise.

In effect this opened them up and made them prone to quick counter attacks, which is actually the main strength of Holland. Thus the controversy of this goal might have sealed the fate of the Azzurri on this night.

'The referee cannot and should not consider fair play as a factor'


The question still remains: Was it an illegal goal?

First let’s state this: If you abide strictly to the rules word-by-word, then the goal was rightfully allowed. Christian Panucci began the play on the field, he got hit by his own team-mate (thus there was no need to stop the play), fell out of bounds and remained there until the goal was scored.

The rulebook does not examine why a player would leave the pitch, or whether he would do so voluntarily or involuntarily. It simply states that even if you leave the pitch you are still considered as standing on the line, therefore there was no offside call to be made. The goal stands.

Many former and current referees, however, have already commented about the incident. Most of them have stated that they probably would have disallowed the goal due to the striker being offside. Their argument is definitely a viable one. They know that the aforementioned rule’s main purpose is to not allow the option of causing a striker to be unfairly offside by running out of bounds during a play.

Thus in this case this rule should not be implemented, and with fair play in mind, they would have regarded Panucci as an injured player on the sidelines getting treatment and not partaking in the game at that moment. With this line of thinking, the goal should have definitely been disallowed.

There is one glitch within this frame of thinking. The concept of fair play in this scenario is being misused. Fair play would have meant that the Dutch team’s players realise that Panucci is seriously hurt, they do not attempt to strike one home, but instead opt to send the ball out of play, or give the ball to the referee whilst pointing at the injury.

The referee cannot and should not consider fair play as a factor. After all nobody has ever received a yellow card for not returning the ball after an injury stoppage. No team has been given a penalty for not stopping play whilst one of their foes goes down. The one gesture by a referee where people might confuse it as being a deed out of fair play is when play is stopped due to injury.

In fact the rulebook clearly states that the stoppage occurs not because that would be fair, but the ref can stop the game because of fear of a serious injury that might need immediate diagnosis and treatment.

Speaking of the level of injury, I thought that the goal should stand, partly for the reasons given above, but mostly because of what happened afterwards. Just start checking out replays. Following the goal, the first person to sprint up to the ref to give him a mouthful is the “injured” Panucci.

Was he really all that hurt that he had to stay down for the full event? Did the goal give him such a shot of adrenalin that he managed to sprint to the ref whilst he was unable to even get off the floor previously? I find that very hard to believe.

Many have decided to feel sorry for Italy because of what happened during those few seconds. I have actually lost respect for Italy for those same events. To me, it seemed like Panucci represented everything that is wrong with football these days. The diving, the prolonged agony over injuries that never were, the painful rolling around like we were watching a bunch of toddlers kicking each other around.

For the sake of provoking thought, let me just throw something out there: The BBC’s website has a nice feature, the virtual replay. If you check that out look at the top view, it’s actually a close call for the offside even if you disregard Panucci.

At the moment of Sneijder’s cross, Van Nistelrooy was either in line or just barely ahead of Massimo Ambrosini. I thought that even without the Panucci incident you could still at least argue for it being a legal goal