UEFA’s offside rules stated after Erik ten Hag’s offside complaint for Copenhagen vs Man United

Copenhagen won 4-3 against Manchester United on Wednesday evening as Erik ten Hag’s men slip further away from potential qualification from their Champions League group.

Marcus Rashford’s red card was the catalyst for the Danish side’s comeback against United. Rasmus Hojlund’s double was quickly cancelled out before two more late goals in the second half, after Bruno Fernandes’ penalty, won the game for Copenhagen.

Three decisions were talked about on the night. The two handballs and the red card. However, an incident during Copenhagen’s first goal wasn’t mentioned by many.

As the ball was struck into the corner, it appeared that a Copenhagen forward player was standing in an offside position and obstructing Andre Onana’s view of the shot.

“First [Copenhagen goal] is an offside goal, second [Copenhagen goal], what can [Maguire] do? The game can’t be like this,” said Ten Hag.

The manager added: “There is a player in front of Onana in an offside position.”

UEFA competitions follow the laws of the game from IFAB, with law 11 being the offside.

Officially, it is stated that a player is offside if they are “clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision”. It appeared that was the case for this goal.

The IFAB website says:

A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:

• interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
• interfering with an opponent by:
  • preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
  • challenging an opponent for the ball or
  • clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
  • making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

The only way that this was not a mistake from the VAR on the evening was if they did not deem the player to be obstructing Onana’s view of the ball. However, the fact that a longer check was not used, to assess the different camera angles, suggest that it was a mistake and something missed by the officials.

“Not only tonight,” replied Ten Hag when asked if the decisions went against his side on Tuesday. “We have to deal with many decisions against us in other games. That’s how it is.”