There’s a special kind of frustration reserved for offsides: the moment you’re sure your eyes have it right, then a graphic turns up and tells you otherwise. And lately it feels like we’re getting more of those moments, not fewer, even with semi-automated offside in the mix.
The point isn’t that technology is “bad” full stop. It’s that football supporters are being asked to accept a decision that can look completely different depending on what reference point you’re using. One minute you’re lining it up with the pitch markings and the cut of the grass, the next you’re staring at a set of perfectly straight digital lines that don’t seem to match what’s on the screen.
The grass line test and why it feels convincing
Most of us, without even thinking, judge an offside by the pitch. The mowing stripes, the box lines, the six-yard line, all of it. It’s instinctive. You assume those stripes are parallel to the goal line, you assume the camera angle isn’t doing too much damage, and you make your call.
But what if the “natural” references aren’t as reliable as we treat them? If the groundsman’s stripes are a touch off, or the camera perspective exaggerates it, we can end up arguing over something that was never a clean measuring stick in the first place. That’s why those still images and screenshots can be so dangerous: they feel definitive when they’re anything but.
When the technology looks too clean to believe
The other side of it is that semi-automated offside can look almost suspiciously neat. The technology shows a player clearly onside, while the pitch lines make it look extremely tight, even off. Fulham’s first goal is the kind of example fans latch onto because it produces that exact feeling: “hang on, that doesn’t match what I’m seeing.”
And once you’ve seen one of those, your trust gets a crack in it. You start thinking about other incidents, like the Haaland one people talked about, where the technology seemed to show a foot in the air while stills suggested it was planted. Whether those stills told the full story or not, the doubt sticks.
The real issue: consistency and confidence
Truth is, if one of these decisions goes against Liverpool, we’re all going to be fuming. Not because we’re uniquely hard done by, but because the system still isn’t delivering the one thing it promised: confidence.
Maybe the tolerances in the tech are better than the tolerances in mowing a pitch. Maybe the pitch markings are the least reliable part of the whole process. But football is watched with human eyes, not calibration charts. If the explanation doesn’t match the picture in front of you, you end up with the same old argument and a different set of lines.
Semi-automated offside should be making things clearer. Too often it’s just moving the confusion to a new place, and leaving supporters to wonder who, exactly, is minding the shop.
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