Was Juve really fucked by Rocchi’s “change of mind” earlier this season?

According to the offside rule and how it was enforced for the past years since they introduced the concept of the line of vision, Koopmeiners goal was valid.

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:
(a) preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
(b) challenging an opponent for the ball or
(c) clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
(d) making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

And the way the rule was enforced was that those goals were denied only if the player in offside position tried to play the ball, moved in a way that had an impact on a defender or the goalkeeper, or if the players is in the line of vision of the goalkeeper, between him and the ball, the moment the ball is kicked.

With time passing they started more often justifying some cases where there was a player offside in the line of vision, when the player was not near the goalkeeper and the ball was getting kicked from outside the box, but they were not even consistent (or more correctly, they were consistent in fucking Juve, just think of De Sciglio goal in Juve Empoli last year, when there was an attacker 1 meter away from Di Gregorio and impacting both his vision and movement while the ball was getting sent to the goal from not even a few meters away).

WIth all that being said: Thuram today wasn't in the line (I traced both the real line of vision and the horizontal one on the ground to prove how the ball was clearly visible to the goalkeeper when it was kicked) and didn't try to play or touch the ball, he wasn't even moving, he was slowly walking away from the goal box and when he saw the ball getting kicked in his direction tried to lift his leg to not get hit. The goalkeeper saw the ball moving, and the reason he completely missed that is that it was deviated by the defender that sent it between Thuram legs.

So why am I talking about Rocchi "changing his mind"?

Because some people are already claiming that the reason the goal today was denied is what Rocchi said after Milan-Pisa, when Milan scored two goals that were supposed to be offside but were considered valid.

First one with Pavlovic clearly trying to play the ball on the limit of the goal box, and influencing the goalkeeper, second one with a player in the line between the ball and the goalkeeper.

Rocchi said that both goals were valid but that from now on, they would have judged those episode based on the distance of the offside player and so episodes like the one from Pavlovic would be considered offside. Don't let me start on all that I find wrong with what he said (rules are made by the IFAB to be applied, not freely interpreted by them, and more importantly, the interpretation should not change DURING THE SEASON),

In my opinion, that was his usual way to beat around the bush instead of admiting it was an error, as he was talking about an attempt of an offside player (the moment the ball was kicked) to play the ball, while being 4m away from the goalkeeper, but I can see more of the usual haters on italian media in the next days claiming that Juve goal was justly denied based on bullshit.

To further prove that goals like the one denied to Koopmeiners were consistently not getting denied to other teams, here two more links:

Here is AIA De Marco (ex referee who apparently can't even differentiate between Lautaro and Di Marco) just a few weeks earlier, during OpenVAR as well, claiming that the Inter goal against Cremonese (that was for the dynamic similiar to the one of today, with Lautaro trying to avoid the ball, at the same distance of Thuram today, althought running toward the ball direction and actively jumping over it) was completely valid as the offside is punishable only if the player touches the ball or is really really near the goal.

And here is a long public post by ex referee Luca Marelli, now Dazn referee voice, claiming that all these goals (Milan against Pisa, Inter against Cremonese, Como against Genoa) are to be considered valid based on a alleged "FIFA guideline" that asked to not consider those episodes offside unless the offside player is in contact with the goalkeeper or inside the goal box.

I guess all those rules, directive and guidelines where suddenly changed moments before today's game…