Offsides are Broken in FM 2019

[hbennett_h14]

Multiple times recently I have had clear goals ruled out for offside. What happens usually is that one of my strikers is near the ball when it goes in but was not interfering with play at all and didn't even touch the ball on its way into the goal. Incidents like this have cost me games recently, with my most recent game being a 2-1 loss where a last minute equalizer for my team was incorrectly ruled out. Here's the scenario: my winger swings in a cross that hits one of their defenders and goes in for an own goal, then what happens? The goal is ruled out because my striker behind their defender, not touching or interfering with him at all was offside. This is absurd. There was another case where one of my players scored an absolute screamer from outside the box only for it to be ruled out for offside, the game pointing to one of my players who was standing at least four or five yards away from the ball as it went in and had turned to watch it fly in. He was nowhere near the goalkeeper, and was not blocking his view at all or affecting any of the defenders in front of him. In real life obviously match officials can make judgement on whether a player was interfering with play or not based on a number of factors. Computers cannot make these decisions. Clearly the game is set-up in a way where players are either registered 'active' or 'inactive' depending on where they are in relation to the ball as it goes in. This system clearly doesn't work as shown in my examples where the game got it wrong in a way that no real life official would. Why not just make it so the game only calls offside when a player in a offside position actually touches the ball. It's clear from my experience playing the game that players rarely act smart enough to effect the game off the ball, so why make the system needlessly complicated to accommodate for scenarios that never happen? Especially when it's resulting in mistakes like the ones I've mentioned happening to me. It just seems ridiculous, but hopefully they fix it soon.

[Snorks]

Reading your post and understanding your frustration, I think you need to go and read Law 13 to reduce some of the common misconceptions around offside.

Firstly, you are correct in that being in an offside position is not an offence, unless the player in that position:

1: Interferes with play

2: Gains an advantage by being in that position

3: Plays or attempts to play  the ball.

so, to criteria 1: Interferes with play - this can include (but not limited to) unsighting a defender (incl. the GK), blocked an opponents movement, or influencing their behaviour in some other way. (This last one is always a bone of contention) - so your example of the player who was nowhere the ball when it went in from a long shot, firstly, where is when the ball crosses the line  is irrelevant for the Offside Law, it is his positioning when the shot was struck (assuming no deflection occurred) that matters. The same goes for the own-goal scenario - what was the situation when the winger played the cross? Did he imfluence the opponents behaviour in any way that resulted in the mis-header?

2: Doesn't really apply to your examples, but gaining an advantage could be from  a rebound or save, or from a deflection of a defender. Can go into more detail, but not relevant to this post.

3: This is a key one, if a player in an offside position when the ball is played forward by a teammate makes any attempt to play the ball he is Offside. This could be a small movement towards the flight of the ball, sticking a leg out, or genuinely attempting to meet it it full-on. It can even apply to a player chasing a long ball down if he is attempting to achieve possession (and he doesn't need to touch the ball to be deemed in possesison)

 

So, any one of your examples could fall into either 1: or 2: and  I suspect the issue is that while the ME is generating correct events, the 3D graphics aren't representing them in as much detail as is needed for you, the gamer, to see.

Also, refereeing errors are coded into the ME as well, I don't know what the SI stats are for how many per game, but in real life there are far more errors than are brought to light and most spectators never see them - they only become obvious when a goal is disallowed, or penalty given or some other 'big decision' and the pundits highlight them. (IRL it's something like a 6-7% error rate without VAR. 2-4% with VAR, count all the decisions a ref makes during 90 minutes from who's throw-in it is to penalty claims including every challenge for the ball because deeming it a fair challenge is still a decision and there are more than 100 per game, so more than 6 or 7 'wrong decisions' per 90 minutes on average IRL)

I suspect, and will offer, any of the above as the reason for your frustration.