Agony, joy as PSL season ends

THE Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season ended last weekend with agony for some clubs and celebrations for others. It was agony for four teams and their supporters, Black Rhinos, Chiredzi United, Shabanie Mine and Bantu Rovers after they all bade farewell to the elite league. They will now have to fight for the right to rejoin the big boys in 2016 but with the level of competition in Division One, the journey might not be so easy.

It was also agony for Highlanders’ supporters who watched their team fall from grace to disgrace. Their supporters have all the right to be angry with the players, the technical department and indeed the executive.

It was indeed agony for ZPC Kariba who suffered defeat when victory was so close after going into the final round of matches two points clear of their only challengers Dynamos only to lose the title by a point after Caps United beat them 3-2 while DeMbare overcame How Mine 2-0.

For DeMbare though, it was celebrations and rightfully so after winning their fourth title in a row. It’s a season that ended well, without much controversy in the administration of the league. But having said that, controversy might stalk the Twine Phiri led league. Questions have been hovering on who landed the Golden Boot Award.

As it is, two players How Mine’s Kuda Musharu and Highlanders’ Charles Sibanda are tied on 12 goals each but is that so?

Very few might still remember the 3-1 win registered by Highlanders over Buffaloes way back in May and one Charles Sibanda was on form that afternoon.

Sibanda was initially said to have scored a hat-trick but later it was said that he scored a brace as the other goal was deflected into the nest by a Buffaloes player.

So the big question is, what is an own goal?

A retired referee said if the shot is going way out of the direction of the goal and gets deflected into the nets by either the attacker’s teammate or opponent, the goal is credited to the teammate or as an own goal but if the shot was goal bound and the same happens, the goal is credited to the attacker. Otherwise goalkeepers will be credited with own goals because on most occasions, the shots are just too hot to handle resulting in goalkeepers deflecting the ball into the nets!

If Sibanda’s shot was also goal-bound but still hit the Buffaloes player, then surely the boy must be rewarded and given the goal, why not? If that happens, more agony will be on the How Mine camp as Sibanda will take his goal tally to 13 and go on to march to the podium on December 15 to collect the $1,500 cheque.

It will also be important to get to see the referee’s initial report on who he credited the goal to and if there are any video clips the better.

Perhaps this article, published by Paddock Talk on the eve of the 2006 World Cup (June 8, 2006 at 5:52AM) under the headline; Fifa Clarifies Definition of an ‘Own Goal’ for 2006 World Cup, will be able to further clarify this argument.

“With only one day to go before the opening of the 18th Fifa World Cup, Fifa’s Technical Study Group (TSG) has clarified the definition of when a goal will be classified as an own goal. Holger Osieck, head of Fifa’s technical development department and Andy Roxburgh, Technical Director of Uefa, presented the new directives at the first daily media briefing held today at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Previous tournaments have been dotted with decisions about what constitutes an own goal which appeared to lack clear guidelines. On the basis of fairness, positive approach and player protection, the benefit of doubt should always be given to the attacker,” explained Holger Osieck, who was assistant coach to Franz Beckenbauer when Germany won the World Cup in 1990.

Own goals are rare in Fifa World Cup finals — there were only 24 in the 644 matches in the tournaments from 1930 to 2002 — and they are often surrounded by confusion about whether the attacker should be awarded the goal or not. To help resolve these kinds of issues, Fifa published guidelines in April 1997 classifying an own goal as when a player plays the ball directly into his own net or when he redirects an opponent’s shot, cross or pass into his own goal. Shots that are on target (ie goal-bound) and touch a defender or rebound from the goal frame and bounce off a defender or goalkeeper are not considered as own goals.

Holger Osieck’s team of highly-experienced football experts have today issued the following standard as a guide for future situations that may involve a questionable goal as happened during the 2002 tournament in Korea/Japan:

l If a goal-bound shot accidentally bounces off a team-mate into the opponent’s goal, the goal will be awarded to the player who struck the ball towards the target in the first place.

l If a goal-bound shot is intentionally redirected into the opponent’s net, the goal will be credited to the player whose action produced the change of direction.

l If a shot is going wide and is then deflected or redirected into the opponent’s goal by a team-mate, this player will of course be credited with the goal.

“The decision regarding who the credited player is can have a major impact on the winner of some of the Fifa awards but also on the total goals a player scores in his career. “This is not a new regulation, only a clarification of the own-goal interpretation which Fifa published in 1997,” said Andy Roxburgh, who was also part of the 2002 TSG group.

As Roxburgh put it, the decision regarding who the credited player is can have a major impact on the winner of some of the Fifa awards but in our case, on who lands the Golden Boot Award.

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