Apparently before Venezuela had conceded 5 goals in the competition with all 5 being ruled out by VAR. 

It is being reported that this guy is on course to be their player of the tournament.

Watching these 2 tournaments (WWC and Copa), it's disgusting how VAR is used nowadays. It's supposed to be clear and obvious errors but they scrutinised every damn little thing that don't even make sense when you slow it down

Trust me. I'm working out in the middle east currently and have watched a few local league games at cafes and the amount of times the game is stopped with people pleading for VAR is unbeleivable. I just assumed it was the culture here but in hindsight it seems that's generally how it's been (mis)used.

The most annoying for me are the instances when nobody knows anything has happened till the anorak refs staring at 20 screens of replays in the studio communicate this to the ref who then, often, cannot hear them properly over the crowd noise. He/she then trots the 50 yards to the sideline to watch every angle of the 20 replays. After wasting all this time, with everybody's eyes on him/her, it's only natural that he/she is under personal pressure to give the decision.
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I think FIFA should have copied american sports that have extensive experience in "instant replays" and started off with limits such as number of challenges per coach/captain and a time limit for every challenge.
https://operations.nfl.com/the-game/history-of-instant-replay/
https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/baseball-replay-mlb-overturn-rate-challenge-delays-rule-fix-041816
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20227820/use-lose-managers-making-most-their-instant-replay-challenges

Football needs timeouts. 5 for each team.

That's not the best example you could've picked though Tone, the linesman should have raised his flag even before Jesus got to the ball, pretty obvious call I thought as did the defender who blocked the initial shot.

I picked it an opposite example as straightforward decisions are also going to VAR which wastes 5 minutes.
As you said, the linesman's raised his flag should have been the end of it.

jones wrote:

That's not the best example you could've picked though Tone, the linesman should have raised his flag even before Jesus got to the ball, pretty obvious call I thought as did the defender who blocked the initial shot.

The VAR makes the linesman redundant now, they are encouraged to keep play going and let VAR check it even if they think it's offside. 

Yeah but only if it's close, in this case Firmino was like three yards offside. It's not like it matters who blocked the shot or like play continued afterwards either, he really could've made the call earlier.

I've deleted the video as it has ended up side-tracking the discussion point which is VAR and ways to improve it's implementation!

Refs are incompetent. That's the main problem with VAR, and with refereeing in general. VAR was never going to change the fact that refs aren't good at their jobs, now they're just not good a using VAR.

At least offside calls are generally made properly now. I really do not understand what the hell takes them so long, though.

As someone who has always moaned at refs, the disappointment is double with the realisation that what i complained about was much better.
The delay kills the moment.
It's getting to a stage where i feel i shouldn't celebrate a goal till VAR has been checked with sense of disappointment/anti-climax whatever the result. The intense high that sticks in the memory would never be reached. Iconic moments like the "russian linesman" or "hand of god" will never happen.

Coombs wrote:

Refs are incompetent. That's the main problem with VAR, and with refereeing in general. VAR was never going to change the fact that refs aren't good at their jobs, now they're just not good a using VAR.

At least offside calls are generally made properly now. I really do not understand what the hell takes them so long, though.

I think they need to do like in ice hockey and have another, technical referee who can make the VAR call. It's not realistic to have the head referee personally watch every dubious rerun.

Agree about the refs coming up short. We're going to have to wait for a new generation of referees and players who grow up in a VAR environment before we see any real results from video technology I think. It's worth pointing out that it is the game itself that needs to adjust to the technology though, much more than the other way around.

Football's been a complete embarrassment for decades as far as refereeing is concerned. It's the only sport I follow that seems to value being unsporting and unfair by refusing officiates the proper tools to enforce the rules. We have a bunch of old FIFA prats to thank for that; they've held this development back for as long as they possibly could. Most of them will be dead within the next 5-10 years, thank goodness, but the damage they've done is probably going to last throughout the next decade too while the sport tries to readjust. Modern football has been built on a fundamental disregard for the rules.

I get why video refereeing gets a bad rap in a summer tournament like this. Goals are fun so it's expected that people will groan when Brazil get three of them disallowed in the same game, but then again it's not like the calls were made unfairly. Firminho did mess up all three goals because he's got shit for brains. People should blame him instead of VAR.

It's tiresome watching matches nowadays with so many stupid stoppages. It was supposed to be clear and obvious big decisions but now every minute decision with millimeters apart offside calls are stopping every game. Slow-mo is making everything seems like penalties and handballs when it is clearly not as well. When you have to rewind and fastforward one decision 20 30 times to make a call it's definitely not clear and obvious for me.

It’s just teething problems. Good that we are going through this now. FIFA will work towards a better implementation. Remember how much the offside rule has changed. Or how we had golden goals, silver goals, back to regular extra time. I don’t know the answer for VAR. now that people have seen its power, nobody will be happy with final result

Yeah that was the pandora’s box folks were scared of opening with VAR. These are initial implementation issues and should be expected. Now they’ll have to come up with clear rules and regs pertaining to when and how exactly VAR should be used. “Clear and obvious” is clearly and obviously too vague a term.

VAR is corrupt as fuck. At least within CONMEBOL.

They overruled a perfectly legitimate goal by Chile just now, and refused to hand Venezuela a clear penalty against Argentina when the latter was only up 1-0.

Apparently this (player on the upper right corner) is offside according to VAR. The ref did not even go watch it on the screen, he just overruled it without checking:

I made the line along the grass color change ahead of them and just moved it. Obviously that won't be exactly right, but while it looks very close I can believe that it was offside.

Haha. Another one disallowed for “hand ball “.

This VAR is going to be a problem

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

I made the line along the grass color change ahead of them and just moved it. Obviously that won't be exactly right, but while it looks very close I can believe that it was offside.

Yeah, it does look offside.

Messi's time to finally win an international trophy.

The official broadcast suggested he was about 5 inches offside (less than your line), though even this assumes that only the colombian players' legs are to be assessed in the process. Unsure what the rulebook says in that regard.

Thankfully we won out on penalties anyway. We were the better team by far. Colombians were very keen on going to penalties, which I found quite puzzling.

Ospina made an outstanding save early on to keep them in the game, but was very average after and could have cost them if not for the tight offside call.

If Uruguay beat Perú as, everyone expects them to, Copa América is wide open. Chile-Uruguay has become a bit of a derby in recent years, so with the other semi-final being Brazil-Argentina it'll make for some intense and entertaining football.

Also, Alexis is back in great form. Hadn't seen him play like this since 2017. Hope he kills it for Chile and is too tired to transfer his great form to manU.

RC8 wrote:

The official broadcast suggested he was about 5 inches offside (less than your line), though even this assumes that only the colombian players' legs are to be assessed in the process. Unsure what the rulebook says in that regard.

My line doesn't really give an exact length as the rulebook state that all bodyparts that are allowed to use also count for offside, if I remember correctly. You can't really see on my line where the shoulders are for example, I'm just pointing out that this doesn't seem like a horrendous call to me. 

As to the Colombians wanting to go to penalties, that is quite usual if Chile was by far the better team, is it not? The lesser team will have gotten more than expected value from the match if it goes to penalties, and vice versa. 

Jed wrote:

Messi's time to finally win an international trophy.

Haven't really followed the tourney, but haven't Argentina been awful? 

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Jed wrote:

Messi's time to finally win an international trophy.

Haven't really followed the tourney, but haven't Argentina been awful? 

They've looked pretty good with Messi being poor recently (in the last two games). Lautaro Martinez is looking like the next great Argentinian striker. 

Meanwhile, Messi has complained about the pitch: 

https://www.sport-english.com/en/news/lionel-messi-the-copa-america-pitches-are-a-disgrace-7527918

Uruguay knocked out on penalties. Looks like Chile will make the final yet again.

At least Uruguay are out because of Suarez missed penalty. Must have bitten off more than he could chew.

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:

This COPA has been boring.
Only one team out of eight scored in the quarter-finals.

Ridiculous. But VAR has played a big part in that.

[font=Source Sans Pro]My line doesn't really give an exact length as the rulebook state that all bodyparts that are allowed to use also count for offside, if I remember correctly. You can't really see on my line where the shoulders are for example, I'm just pointing out that this doesn't seem like a horrendous call to me. [/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]As to the Colombians wanting to go to penalties, that is quite usual if Chile was by far the better team, is it not? The lesser team will have gotten more than expected value from the match if it goes to penalties, and vice versa. [/font]

Yes, if you draw the line from the colombian player's head and shoulders to the ground you see the chilean player was not offside. It's only if you count his feet as the only relevant body part that the chilean player appears to be offside by 5 inches or so. I don't think VAR officials could argue that this thing was offside beyond reasonable doubt, and as such I think it should have stood.

Chile was much better on the day, but Colombia had been having a much better Copa América and were favourites to get to the final. I am surprised that, throughout the game, they were happy to sit back and counter (very unsuccessfully). I guess maybe they didn't count on their counters being so ineffective, but I genuinely expected them to have us against the ropes for part of the match.

Drawing the line that way would be wrong. If a player stands completely still his feet and shoulder will be equally positioned offside/onside-wise, but if I move the line from the feet to the shoulder it would change a lot. Your suggestion would only work if the photo was taken directly from above.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Drawing the line that way would be wrong. If a player stands completely still his feet and shoulder will be equally positioned offside/onside-wise, but if I move the line from the feet to the shoulder it would change a lot. Your suggestion would only work if the photo was taken directly from above.

Let me put it this way: it is obvious from that angle that it is very close when you only consider their feet. We know from other TV angles that the colombian player was leaning forward towards his own goal at the time, and thus using only his feet for reference is not accurate. Considering that by the time the chilean player receives the ball that was slowly lobbed to him there are four colombian players ahead of him, I don't think giving that as an offside is a sensible decision.
 
Just like you shouldn't give a penalty from an unintentional and inconsequential handball because 'maybe it touched his hand', you should not disallow goals based on speculative nonsense like this.

Could this Copa America save Alexis’ career as an elite player? Hope he is not too rejuvenated for Utd.

Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:

I don't think his career as an elite is salvageable.
Age has set in and the zip is gone.

Yes but winning the Copa america with his country could give him a second wind

He’ll just come back tired and jaded and injury prone.

This is his last hurrah. He can't run any more though, so his days at the top end of football are behind him

He’s top heavy and his once muscular lean body is now pure dad bod

Used to be springy now has lost that burst