Knowing the Unknowable: Soft Laws and Hard Decisions.

The 2021 Nations League Cup Final was a soccer/football match played between France and Spain. It was settled by a goal scored by a player who was in an offside position when a ball was passed toward him by his teammate, but was not penalized because in its trajectory, the ball scraped the studs of an opponent trying to intercept the ball. According to FIFA’s laws of the game “A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, $\ldots $ is not considered to have gained an advantage” and therefore has not caused an offside offense. The goal was allowed to stand, and France duly won the match, and the cup, with this the winning goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]