PotterLog
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The law says though that it is only penalised if it clearly prevents the player from playing the ball. Given that Patterson could see the ball when it was struck and actually dived towards the ball that he had no chance of getting, I'd say it didn't.
Therefore even with Vini stepping across him it could easily have been given within the laws. It's not cut and dried, it is a subjective decision.
Again, I think that's a slight misreading, or possibly bad wording - I don't think it means that in some circumstances you can obstruct the opponent's line of vision but not affect their ability to play the ball. I think it's saying that the obstructing of the line of vision is the thing that intrinsically prevents the opponent being able to play the ball (always).
Either way, in practice if a player is standing virtually on the keeper's toes, temporarily blocking his view as a shot is coming in, you've got a hard task arguing he wasn't involved in play.