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".

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.

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.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

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.

Yep, pretty much. There's always going to be a human element to it because it's humans and not computers who make the decisions, but the referees will get better at it with training and experience. Ultimately it's like most other changes in society though - it's not the current generation of officiates, who were taught to referee games in a certain way and have been operating according to the same core principles for decades, who'll unlock the full potential of technical assistance. It's the next generation, the ones who grow up with it, who'll learn how to use it the best way.

Football has been in full crisis mode for the last couple of years as far as bad refereeing decisions and their impact on games is concerned, and if I'm being honest it kinda blows my mind that anyone who watches 45-50 games each season would argue otherwise. VAT was needed every bit as much as the offside rule was needed in order to save the sport once upon a time. That rule has been tuned and tweaked throughout the years too in order to stay relevant.

Guess we'll just have to get used to the game being interrupted with increasing frequency as refs doubt their own judgement and defer to technology, as players hound the ref to demand reviews and act out in a VAR friendly way.
Games being decided by penalties, players playing for penalties.

VAR is for the mass TV audience, I imagine it must be a pain in the ass if you're at the game.

It's no different to other sports that use technology. It is a flawed system but, like Klaus said, that's because of how slow the implementation has been. If this change had been put through in 1998, we'd see a more polished version of VAR in place.

While we're at it, mic up the referees.

y va marquer wrote:

Guess we'll just have to get used to the game being interrupted with increasing frequency as refs doubt their own judgement and defer to technology, as players hound the ref to demand reviews and act out in a VAR friendly way.
Games being decided by penalties, players playing for penalties.

I get what you mean, Y va. I don't think I've ever seen a World Cup with so many penalties before.

It's also worth keeping in mind that important club games are already being decided by penalties to a high degree though, and players are already doing their utmost to win them. The expected knock-on effect from technical assistance is that it's going to lead to better defending, because it will be harder to get away with illegal behaviour behind the referee's back (and conversely, people will get carded for outright cheating which will lead to less simulation). I'd view that as a positive development.

The hounding of referees is a bit ridiculous right now, with people being busier complaining about a decision than defending a counter, but I think it can be avoided by handing out cards, just like you do when a Mourinho-coached team gang up on the referee and start waving imaginary red cards at every freekick. Maybe make a rule that players can't question the referee that way. If they want a dialogue it'll happen through the captain on the pitch and no one else.

Conversely, we've seen a lot of incidents where defenders just stop playing because they think an opponent is offside. I think we conceded at least 3-4 goals last season this way, and it makes my blood boil. That's never going to be an issue with VAR. Everyone will have to play until the whistle.

If we had the stakes and media coverage of today in 1986, would the hand of god be the hand of god or a grotesque referring error? I think the legend plays out differently, regardless of the perpetrator’s stature.

So as Klaus indicates, we’ve needed VAR forever. All it’s doing now is helping surface the mess we’ve had for years and yearsI.

The one concern that I do have is VAR cannot solve everything. There are subjective decisions that a referee has to make a choice on on the field. The parameters do not change when another set of humans sitting in the VAR room needs to assist. Eg. Did a defender mean to raise his arm towards the ball? How do you judge intent from a video? These are the decisions that rile us up though.

Where VAR can help, particularly if we add AI, not just human eyes, is more 1s and 0s types things, e.g.,

• did you start your foul in the penalty box?
• were you offside when the pass was made?
• did you make contact with the player who fell to the floor like he had been shot?
• who touched the ball before it went into goal?

Add time outs and coach plays for free kicks etc.
The skepticism arises from the nefarious money motives of humans. Once ads creep in to the game, that's it. The sport might be saved, but it'll be a different sport on the other side. Plus side being it'll pick up leaps in the states.
They HAVE to find a way of reducing the mistakes without machines.
But I'm sure var is here to stay. No going back.

Not really got a strong opinion on VAR either way.

It’s been a thoroughly entertaining World Cup so far

Klaus wrote:

y va marquer wrote:

Guess we'll just have to get used to the game being interrupted with increasing frequency as refs doubt their own judgement and defer to technology, as players hound the ref to demand reviews and act out in a VAR friendly way.
Games being decided by penalties, players playing for penalties.

I get what you mean, Y va. I don't think I've ever seen a World Cup with so many penalties before.

It's also worth keeping in mind that important club games are already being decided by penalties to a high degree though, and players are already doing their utmost to win them. The expected knock-on effect from technical assistance is that it's going to lead to better defending, because it will be harder to get away with illegal behaviour behind the referee's back (and conversely, people will get carded for outright cheating which will lead to less simulation). I'd view that as a positive development.

The hounding of referees is a bit ridiculous right now, with people being busier complaining about a decision than defending a counter, but I think it can be avoided by handing out cards, just like you do when a Mourinho-coached team gang up on the referee and start waving imaginary red cards at every freekick. Maybe make a rule that players can't question the referee that way. If they want a dialogue it'll happen through the captain on the pitch and no one else.

Conversely, we've seen a lot of incidents where defenders just stop playing because they think an opponent is offside. I think we conceded at least 3-4 goals last season this way, and it makes my blood boil. That's never going to be an issue with VAR. Everyone will have to play until the whistle.

Don't get me wrong  - I agree that the game needed more reliable arbitration - however watching how it's unfolding at this WC has left me cold.

I wonder what quality of analysis and discussion went into anticipating, and eliminating the possible pitfalls, and how this influenced the VAR process for this tournament.

Thought Banega was comfortably the best player on the pitch tonight. Really enjoyed watching him.

jones wrote:

Big Willie wrote:

Unluck flobs. Your boys put on a great effort.

You not Nigerian as well Will?

No. I pretty much almost always support the underdog. Plus I have always had a soft spot for Nigeria since Kanu, Jay-Jay and co.

Claudius wrote:

If we had the stakes and media coverage of today in 1986, would the hand of god be the hand of god or a grotesque referring error? I think the legend plays out differently, regardless of the perpetrator’s stature.

So as Klaus indicates, we’ve needed VAR forever. All it’s doing now is helping surface the mess we’ve had for years and yearsI.

The one concern that I do have is VAR cannot solve everything. There are subjective decisions that a referee has to make a choice on on the field. The parameters do not change when another set of humans sitting in the VAR room needs to assist. Eg. Did a defender mean to raise his arm towards the ball? How do you judge intent from a video? These are the decisions that rile us up though.

Where VAR can help, particularly if we add AI, not just human eyes, is more 1s and 0s types things, e.g.,

• did you start your foul in the penalty box?
• were you offside when the pass was made?
• did you make contact with the player who fell to the floor like he had been shot?
  - who touched the ball before it went into goal?

That last one is easy and doesn't need computers or VAR bro. The answer will be Harry Kane. It will always be Harry Kane.

Big Willie wrote:

Claudius wrote:

- who touched the ball before it went into goal?

That last one is easy and doesn't need computers or VAR bro. The answer will be Harry Kane. It will always be Harry Kane.

lol.   well played 

Argentina would be in much better shape if Messi would let Sampaoli pick his starting XI.

Like the first two matches?

Big Willie wrote:

Claudius wrote:

If we had the stakes and media coverage of today in 1986, would the hand of god be the hand of god or a grotesque referring error? I think the legend plays out differently, regardless of the perpetrator’s stature.

So as Klaus indicates, we’ve needed VAR forever. All it’s doing now is helping surface the mess we’ve had for years and yearsI.

The one concern that I do have is VAR cannot solve everything. There are subjective decisions that a referee has to make a choice on on the field. The parameters do not change when another set of humans sitting in the VAR room needs to assist. Eg. Did a defender mean to raise his arm towards the ball? How do you judge intent from a video? These are the decisions that rile us up though.

Where VAR can help, particularly if we add AI, not just human eyes, is more 1s and 0s types things, e.g.,

• did you start your foul in the penalty box?
• were you offside when the pass was made?
• did you make contact with the player who fell to the floor like he had been shot?
  - who touched the ball before it went into goal?

That last one is easy and doesn't need computers or VAR bro. The answer will be Harry Kane. It will always be Harry Kane.

arsedoc md wrote:

Add time outs and coach plays for free kicks etc.
The skepticism arises from the nefarious money motives of humans. Once ads creep in to the game, that's it. The sport might be saved, but it'll be a different sport on the other side.  Plus side being it'll pick up leaps in the states.
They HAVE to find a way of reducing the mistakes without machines.
But I'm sure var is here to stay. No going back.

Time outs and coach plays seems like an awful idea to me. I don't know what football benefits from that?

What do you mean by the bolded sentences?

I think it's been a net positive. It seems to be resulting in more games being decided by big decisions, but when we watch games where referees don't get those decisions correct we tear our hair out in frustration. There's a number of games that's threatened to make a mockery of it, but I think that relies on referees then having the strength to card players and assert their control of the situation. I think it'll bed in well, there are certainly good signs. 

How widespread it will become I'm not so sure. Does anyone think we'll really have whole teams analysing games as they go on in the League and Cups? 

I think Y Va's point about it being for the benefit of the TV audience is very valid. I can imagine being frustrated in the crowd at not knowing what is going on. 

Proof wrote:

Argentina would be in much better shape if Messi would let Sampaoli pick his starting XI.

I think you got the sequence of events backwards.