Holland v Italy

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It makes me laugh that so many people on here are gloating about what a great decision it was (how many of you knew the law before this goal?....I didn't). I accept that I was wrong about the law, I honestly didn't know that when Pannuci got whacked in the face by his own goal keeper, he had to ask the ref for permission to writhe around in agony. This would have avoided Van Nistlehorse scoring that goal.....anyone who thinks this is fair and 'within the spirit of the game' and indeed would happily let a goal against Reading like this go by without comment is either lying or a very honourable person. The decision was indeed correct and I'm a grade A prat for not knowing the law, but somehow it just dosen't seem right.

Point taken. I think most of the gloating was at the expense of the 'experts'. I noticed today that David Pleat was still calling it a "farce". Anyway, I think the rule is fine as it is. It means the ref doesn't have to make a difficult decision in the middle of a goalmouth scramble and it means that players can't get an advantage by feigning injury. The simplest (i.e. least open to interpretation and abuse) rule would be that every player is active as long as the ball is in play. If the referee wants to make a player inactive, he has to stop play. By the way, I think that should apply to both attackers and defenders, i.e. take out the clause about attackers not being involved in the play. Offside is offside.

[rabidbee]

It makes me laugh that so many people on here are gloating about what a great decision it was (how many of you knew the law before this goal?....I didn't). I accept that I was wrong about the law, I honestly didn't know that when Pannuci got whacked in the face by his own goal keeper, he had to ask the ref for permission to writhe around in agony. This would have avoided Van Nistlehorse scoring that goal.....anyone who thinks this is fair and 'within the spirit of the game' and indeed would happily let a goal against Reading like this go by without comment is either lying or a very honourable person. The decision was indeed correct and I'm a grade A prat for not knowing the law, but somehow it just dosen't seem right.

The thing is, as TBM rightly pointed out (got there before me, the bugger), had Panucci landed one yard inside the pitch, nobody would question the goal, so where's the difference?