In Reply to: How was Yamal's prior handball anything but intentional? posted by Max_Wedge on July 14, 2026 at 15:54:00
When I was growing up it was a question of "did it touch the ball at all?" Then it was whether the hand was going to the ball or the ball was going to the hand. Then we had this "natural position" thing that's sometimes easier stated than defined. This cup I started hearing an "above the elbow - below the elbow" distinction.
So what I do now is to go with the "natural position" take, watch the angle of the hand/forea and that usually comes out correct most of the time.
That Yamal incident did not look like a handball from that point of view.
Also I'm not sure to what extent intent actually matters. For everything else what actually matters is consequences whenever intentional or not.
And there have been some bad decisions in this cup, for sure.