Advantage

ADVANTAGE

They say that the best referee is the one that you don't know is there. While, yes, there are occasionally controversial decisions to be made that will inevitably attract attention to the referee, for the most part you can know a referee has done well when at the end of the game you're yelling more at your team for playing terribly (if you're a Liverpool fan you know what I'm talking about) than at the referee.

Nothing is more frustrating than watching or playing a game that is interrupted every 30 seconds by the whistle. To avoid interrupting play and to be able to spend more time enjoying the beautiful game, "advantage" was created.  According to FIFA, "The referee allows play to continue when the team against which an offence has been committed will benefit from such an advantage and penalises the original offence if the anticipated advantage does not ensue at that time."

In simpler terms: If team A commits a foul against team B, but team B nonetheless has an advantage (such as a goal scoring opportunity or an immediate opportunity to advance an attack) then the referee signals advantage and the play continues. The advantage call is one that is made completely at the referees discretion, and therefore there is no solid rule as to when it must be used. When to call advantage will vary widely with the situation. Below I've listed a series of things a referee might consider when deciding whether or not to give a team advantage:

• The amount of time it takes after the offence for the advantageous play to form.
• The strength of the advantage vs the severity of the offence. 
• The field position where offence occurs (the closer to the opponents' goal, the stronger the advantage).
• The atmosphere of the match.
• The chances of a dangerous attack or goal scoring opportunity.

Let's look quickly at an example to show how the above circumstances might change the referees decision. A player from Team A is in Team B's penalty area and is about to take a shot but gets fouled. The ball immediately spills loose and another player from Team A receives the ball and takes a shot. The referee to this point has allowed play to continue because he sees that Team A has an immediate chance to score. Now, however, he has to weigh the two options. If the player's shot goes in, a goal will be awarded without the need of a penalty kick. If the player misses the shot, the referee will most likely choose to penalize Team B for the foul, and award Team A with a penalty kick. In other words the advantage should result in an opportunity greater than the alternative free kick. 

The referee should only wait as long as a few seconds to decide if there was significant advantage received. If he doesn't feel there will be significant advantage then he penalizes the team that committed the offence and a free kick is taken. If the offence committed warrants expulsion (red card) or a caution (yellow card) but the referee feels there is strong enough advantage, he should allow play to continue and issue the card to the offending player when the ball next goes out of play. 

As you can see in the picture above, to signal advantage the referee raises his arms with his palms upwards and his body facing the direction of play. He might yell something like "Play on!" to alert the players to continue play. 

Here are some real-life (ok this is from FIFA 2012 but it gets the idea across) moments in which advantage has been applied:

The referee allows advantage, but gives a red card after the ball goes out of play. 

In this video the referee made an obvious mistake by not allowing for the advantage. After the initial offence the team still received the ball and a goal followed, but the referee had already called, or was in the process of calling it back. 

Now that I've bored you with advantage, laugh at this ref who obviously doesn't understand what it means to not be the center of attention: