Passive Voice

I was watching the Mexico-Brazil Copa America match last night on GolTV. The broadcast was kind of painful, and not just if you're a fan of Brazil. The South American powerhouse appeared to net a goal in the first half, only to have it called offside. Announcer Phil Schoen immediately described the call as totally, incontrovertibly wrong.

Except of course, it wasn't. Brazil sent a shot, or maybe a pass, into the goal mouth. Two Brazilian players were in the vicinity. One was clearly offside, and furthermore, right in front of the goalkeeper. The other wasn't, and he was the one who collected the ball and sent it to the back of the net.

The argument -- although Schoen never actually made it -- would be that the player who scored wasn't offside, and the player who was offside was "passive," in that he didn't make the play. But any goalie -- and any DC United fan still bitter about the 1998 MLS Cup -- will tell you that if a player is standing within the central part of that goalie's field of vision, he is "involved in the play." In this case, he may have even obstructed the Mexican keeper's view of the shot.

It's possible that FIFA has added additional language that classify more cases of offside as passive, but call me both old school and a former goalie. I don't buy it. The call was correct, and Schoen has been doing this long enough that he should have known better, or at least been able to acknowledge why the referee might not have called it. Which, once again, makes me think I should be a soccer broadcaster, because I could have interpreted the play better.