DOGSO vs DOG

What's the difference between Denial Of a Goal Scoring Opportunity and Denial Of a Goal? Let's discuss with a fun example...

Ref X

Jul 11, 2023

Let’s use this clip as an example: NSH vs ATL: Non-review for red card (denial of a goal) – not given

You can see the goalkeeper clearly handles the ball after a shot outside of his penalty area here.

My initial thought was that this might be DOGSO. Seems like an obvious goal scoring opportunity, right?

Actually, wrong!

Let’s review the DOGSO criteria this meets:

Defenders - nobody near ✅
Distance to goal - 20 yards ✅
Direction of play - generally towards goal ✅
Control of likeihood of control - he doesn't have control, as he's already taken a shot (nor will he get the rebound) ❌

Because the player has already taken the shot with no chance to recover the rebound, this cannot be DOGSO nor a DOGSO handball.

The ball clearly rebounds right into a crowd of yellow jerseys!

That means we have to analyze the play using different criteria for DOG.

The bar for Denial Of a Goal is very high. The ball has to be 100% undeniably going into the goal for DOG to come into play.

This shot is from almost half field. What are the chances this ends up as a goal?

All I know is that it definitely is not 100%.

So a yellow caution here is appropriate for UB.

Note: if the GK has handled the ball outside the area and the attacker collected the rebound (or was likely to collect the rebound), we would be returning to DOGSO criteria and giving a red here. Thanks, A!

Know a soccer ref? Feel free to share this with them 💙