Quote Originally Posted by dv8r View Post
If I play a long ball to another team mate who runs with it and scores, that is still an assist because the player did not create the goal himself. I've played fantasy football games, I've watched goals like this scored in real life Champions League and the assist is given to the player who provides the pass for the goal. The basic definition is "an assist is a contribution by a player which helps to score a goal." . Based on the commentary, the player passing the ball is helping to score the goal, so therefore it's an assist.
The definition of what is and what isn't an assist is a very grey area, simply because they don't exist in the official rules of the game.
Different competitions have different ideas of what an assist is and from what i've just been reading there isn't any right or wrong.
The wiki page for an assist says "an assist is a contribution by a player which helps to score a goal." so if this is true your arguement, dv8r, is correct.( I just feel an assist needs to be more directly relating to the ball going into the net).

The wiki page also says a maximum of two players can be awarded an assist, now that has got me, can't think of any example where this could happen.

Good interesting thread, with as far as I can see no right or wrong answer.