Which isn't true though, a large proportion of fouls are late tackles where the defender is playing the ball in good faith.
Yes I think that's the most likely scenario, in which case the laws say pen, but if I was ref I might have let it go cos I consider it dishonourable play.
Yeah there's no question it would have looked like a pen in real time, but saying that only one decision was ever going to be made isn't the same as saying it was the right decision - your 'so it's a penalty' is a bit of sleight of hand. With the slo-mos etc., it's a harder call.
I agree reffing is about judgement, but while the laws are framed the way they are their decisions are always going to be up for scrutiny.
Personally I didn't even see the Eduardo incident till after the United match, and at the time I thought it was a pen and was delighted, so I don't think it's all about the furore, it's an interesting test case for a marginal area of the game.
Again, I agree it was fair enough that the ref gave a pen, I wouldn't blame him in the least. The question is whether technically, according to the laws and with a god's-eye view, it should have been a pen.
But then as Grinner points out, adjudicating offsides consistently is essentially impossible, so it's not surprising that at the top level, where the stakes are so high, that's what they're concentrating on. No-one blames them much for missing a foul, they blame the ref, whereas everyone blames them for wrong offside calls. The upshot I reckon is that as they run along the touchline, much of the time they're drawing an imaginary line across the pitch where the last man is, while simultaneously trying to watch the play to see if a through-ball's being played. Makes keeping an eye out for general misdemeanours pretty hard.
