Handling must be DELIBERATE. In Law 12, the word "deliberate" is used, and it is rarely used in the Laws of the Game. When I consider if an incident constituted a Deliberate Handling or not, I look at several factors, including:
1) Did the hand move to the ball so as to deliberately make contact with the ball? If so, it is Deliberate Handling.
2) Was the hand in a normal position when the ball struck the hand? Watch how the player runs - were the arms or elbows out or was the arm or hand in an unusual position for that player? When the player has his/her arms up above the head, there is little doubt that this was a deliberate movement of the "hand" to contact the ball, unless that player may be falling. The hand may have been extended out away from the body, but it is not always Deliberate Handling.
3) Did the player have an opportunity to move their hand out of the way of the ball? Here the ball may have been kicked toward the player whose hand is in the line of flight of the ball, and the player deliberately leaves their hand there to strike the ball when they had time to move it out of the way.
4) If the hand or arm is plastered to the player's side (often in an apparent attempt to avoid contact with the ball), I would NOT call that Deliberate Handling.
5) If the hand moved as a reflex because the players were so close and the ball came at them at such a pace so as to present an apparent clear and present danger to the player from the player's point of view. If they have time to get out of the way, they should. Often girls will put their arms across their chest when they had time to play the ball in an alternative fashion - this is deliberate handling. If they had not time to think, there is no handling.
Whether the ball falls directly to their feet or creates a clear advantage for the player, where the ball falls is irrelevant - it may be just the player's lucky day. It all depends on your decision whether the player deliberately handled the ball or not.
~The Juggler
There are 10 types of people in the world: people who can read binary and those who can't.