Clrnc wrote:

Mirth wrote:

It's amazing. Lineker literally reads the rules to them and Rio goes "I've seen them given".

How bad was that header though?

Then again, Australia and Iran got a penalty like this. The inconsistency even with the VAR is the problem.

Football is always going to have inconsistency. It's about reducing it.

VAR has been positive for the most part. There’s not much you can do about the subjective decisions and no much you can do about how the VAR guys interprete ‘clear and obvious error’.

The other thing about that handball---advantage was let play right? Can't bring it back to penalty cos they missed the finish.

Mirth wrote:

goon wrote:

Rio and Drogba think it’s a penalty because it’s a bad header and a mistake from the defender. What?

It's amazing. Lineker literally reads the rules to them and Rio goes "I've seen them given".

...

That made me laugh.
Doesn't help that he already sounds stupid.
I place him one place above Merson and Kamara in the stupid stakes.

goon wrote:

VAR has been positive for the most part. There’s not much you can do about the subjective decisions but I maintain some referees don’t have a proper grasp of the rules.

It could also be because referees come from all over the world and, while I'm sure FIFA try to standardise it, they probably are used to different interpretations of some rules. What is considered excessive force from an English referee is wildly different to what gets flagged in Spain, for example.

Big Willie wrote:

Unluck flobs. Your boys put on a great effort.

Yeah. It was disappointing. I never expected us to go through tbh, but once we had put ourselves in position to do so it made it a bit tougher to take

Oh well. At least I can enjoy the rest of the tournament without stressing

I am happy Messi is through in his last World Cup. Don't think Argentina stand a chance though.

Sorry Flobs.

How does a 34 year old start in midfield, a position in which he played almost a decade back?

Sampaoli celebrating like he’s part of the team, would imagine he’s a bystander at this point

MistaT wrote:

Sampaoli celebrating like he’s part of the team, would imagine he’s a bystander at this point

Really? I noticed he went straight down the tunnel after the whistle went.

Mirth wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

Then again, Australia and Iran got a penalty like this. The inconsistency even with the VAR is the problem.

Football is always going to have inconsistency. It's about reducing it.

I think the problem most see with it is that in the past you had simply refs who'd bottle or miss/misjudge an incident and usually you'd have nobody but him to blame. Now that you have a full team of ref wankers sitting in front of 12 screens you either get the rub of the green and a call is overturned/made retrospectively or it'll inevitably feel like you're being shafted on purpose.

Generally speaking the first two rounds of the tournament had mostly good, even very good referees and the VAR usage was sensible too with a couple notable exceptions like Portugal-Morocco. The last round of games however has been horrible, group B yesterday was a complete clusterfuck looked like a Mike Dean show at times. We can probably expect more errant VAR judgments now that the stakes are only going higher

Maradona is a nutcase! Real life Tony Montana

VAR is great for entertainment to be fair.

Was hoping Iwobi would impress and we would be able to con a bit of money out of some unsuspecting club for him. That's gone out of the window now.

Mirth wrote:

goon wrote:

VAR has been positive for the most part. There’s not much you can do about the subjective decisions but I maintain some referees don’t have a proper grasp of the rules.

It could also be because referees come from all over the world and, while I'm sure FIFA try to standardise it, they probably are used to different interpretations of some rules. What is considered excessive force from an English referee is wildly different to what gets flagged in Spain, for example.

It can be excused in the World Cup, sure. But I reckon you’d get the same level of inconsistency, probably more, within the Premier League itself. The PGMOL or whatever it’s called is managed by Mike Riley and group of dinosaurs. I don’t think referees get the necessary training or guidance to improve on that front. They probably don’t even get tested to ensure they have a proper grasp of the rules. You could easily reduce the level of subjectivety involved in decisions. Even VAR wouldn’t eleminate that sort of ineptness.

Rohit wrote:

How does a 34 year old start in midfield, a position in which he played almost a decade back?

Ask somebody o! Ask somebody!

The reality is that it's going to take years to make this work well. Both referees and players have to adjust to it. It's not happening overnight. If football had been a normal sport and FIFA hadn't been a collection of incorrigible conservative knobs we would have done this 10-15 years ago, and we'd be in a good place right now.

Instead we've let it go so far that whether the referee is having a good or a bad day has become more important than anything else on a typical match day. The game keeps getting quicker and more athletic and there's just no way for a human being to keep up on the pitch without technical assistance.

There's always going to be someone who has to make a decision in the end, and just because they have more information doesn't mean they're going to make the right one. But they will have the information instead of having to rely on pure guesswork. We've seen some shoddy refereeing in the final groupstage round, but I reckon this tournament would still have been much, much worse without VAR.

goon wrote:

Mirth wrote:

It could also be because referees come from all over the world and, while I'm sure FIFA try to standardise it, they probably are used to different interpretations of some rules. What is considered excessive force from an English referee is wildly different to what gets flagged in Spain, for example.

It can be excused in the World Cup, sure. But I reckon you’d get the same level of inconsistency, probably more, within the Premier League itself. The PGMOL or whatever it’s called is managed by Mike Riley and group of dinosaurs. I don’t think referees get the necessary training or guidance to improve on that front. They probably don’t even get tested to ensure they have a proper grasp of the rules. You could easily reduce the level of subjectivety involved in decisions. Even VAR wouldn’t eleminate that sort of ineptness.

Imagine Mike Dean reffing Arsenal Spurs watching a Kane dive in injury time on the screen with popcorn and everything. Good grief I'm tempted to put my foot through my TV just imagining it

Mistakes are made with VAR, but fewer are made than without it. That's what matters to me. That some referees can't make the right decision even with replays and slow motion isn't VAR's fault.