World cup 2018

[essexian]

VAR got it WRONG again...that was NEVER a penalty in the Denmark V Australia game.

The referees need to learn that just because a ball hits an arm, its not always handball. The same way that if a defender touches a forward in the box and the forward falls over, it does not make it a foul. Some of the VAR decisions have been just wrong and are ruining the World Cup IMHO

So glad that they will never have VAR in the Staffordshire County Senior League where I watch most of my football.

[andyoxon]

Croatia v Arg

Bit of a clanger by the goalkeeper...    Almost feel a tad sorry for the chap.

[citoyen]

Bit of a clanger by the goalkeeper... 

Superb finish by Rebic though - still required a lot of skill to put it away.

Modric and Rakitic’s goals were top class too.

[Von Broad]

Don't think I've seen such a shambolic Argentinian team in all the years I've been watching the World Cup. All over the show.
Looks like a whole generation has been relying on the genius of one player to carry a whole nation for way, way too long. That's such a huge burden. He looked thoroughly pissed off.

The manager was a compelling watch though! 

They've always been a little bit like it, but Croatia look kind of scary to me. Not sure I want to sit through 90 minutes with them!!

[fuzzy]

I think I may have got a little too much satisfaction from the body language of Diego Maradona?

Fuck it. No. It was fantastic to see the "Great Man" looking so glum.

[Von Broad]

VAR got it WRONG again...that was NEVER a penalty in the Denmark V Australia game.

Dreadful decision.
As was the decision to keep Croatias' Rebic on the pitch yesterday.
I suppose it's early days with the VAR system, but it's all over the place at the moment.

[citoyen]

As was the decision to keep Croatias' Rebic on the pitch yesterday.

There were several fruity challenges from both sides that went unpunished. I'm not even sure that Rebic's was the worst.

[essexian]

Interesting piece on VAR in The Guardian this morning.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/22/var-at-the-world-cup-the-big-decisions-game-by-game

Lets hope this is the last time they use VAR in the World Cup but I doubt it.

[Jaded]

I think it is just work in progress. As a rugby and cricket watcher in used to breaks in play for reviews.

The flow of football is regularly held up by thing the players do, I don’t think VAR makes a lot of difference to that.

What I’d really like to see is proper retrospective citing for foul play or simulating.

[LEE]

As was the decision to keep Croatias' Rebic on the pitch yesterday.

There were several fruity challenges from both sides that went unpunished. I'm not even sure that Rebic's was the worst.

Horrid, niggly, game.  I lost count of all the deliberate, but sneaky, foot/ankle stamps.  Potentially bone-breaking and unacceptable from one professional on another.
It needs to be stamped out (NPI) using VAR (well they need to start using VAR for something.)

As for Argentina they have flattered to deceive for a long time now and only qualified due to Messi's brilliance in their final game. 
They built their team around him, relied totally on him, but  he looked an isolated, sorry, figure last night.

Barcelona are infinitely superior to the Argentina national team. 

The World Cup used to be the pinnacle of the game but I'm afraid that title belongs to the Champions League now.

Sir Alex Ferguson once commented that Messi was the greatest player, for Barcelona, but Cristiano Ronaldo was a great player... in any team.

[citoyen]

Sir Alex Ferguson once commented that Messi was the greatest player, for Barcelona, but Cristiano Ronaldo was a great player... in any team.

I was thinking along the same lines last night. Messi is a team player, so thrives when he has strong team-mates around him. Ronaldo is a selfish individualist, which can be frustrating for his team-mates, but it does mean that he can still shine in a weak team - as he showed so effectively in the game against Spain.

Salah is another who relies on being part of a strong team. He's been entirely anonymous in both of Egypt's games so far - partly down to not being fully fit, I guess, but he doesn't have anyone of the calibre of Firmino to play off in that Egypt team.

One of the most disappointing players for me last night was Mascherano - whatever happened to the tenacious terrier-like player he used to be? Not once did he show any real desire to win the ball.

[DuncanM]

I don't understand why people think the principle of VAR is wrong.  If a ref makes the right decision 90% of the time, then why not review the controversial ones? If they review 20% of them and get the same ratio, then that means there are now 2 wrong decisions instead of 10.
Implementation is clearly an issue, and in the FA Cup the crowd didn't understand what was happening, so that needs fixing. Timeliness is an issue, so that needs improving too. In general, allowing a ref to see what all the people watching on TV can see, in order to allow them to make better decisions has to be a good thing.

I think that piece on the success/failure is harsh - one of them essentially says "it wasn't clear cut and the pundits spent 15 minutes arguing about it, but VAR changed the decision from yes to no, and so got it wrong".

[citoyen]

One of the problems seems to be the rule about not being able to review decisions once play has restarted. Perhaps the on-field refs (or fourth officials) need to be more willing to hold up play to give the VAR a chance.

[DuncanM]

Or they need more VAR refs.
Off-the-ball stuff is really hard though - would going back a few minutes to issue a card be better than retrospectively banning someone?

[Greenbank]

I don't understand why people think the principle of VAR is wrong.  If a ref makes the right decision 90% of the time, then why not review the controversial ones? If they review 20% of them and get the same ratio, then that means there are now 2 wrong decisions instead of 10.

VAR was introduced to help end controversial decisions that had (or hadn't) been made. It's corrected some but it's made many more decisions worse and is poisoning the attitude of the players/managers during the game.

As that Guardian article shows, what's happened is that it has increased the arguments about certain decisions (the Poulsen handball was the most extreme case so far). If quality pundits (not Lawro et al but actual people who understand the modern game) and ex-referees can't agree about a decision having all viewed the same footage then there's no hope for it. It just shows that the application of the rules relies upon too much interpretation and is too subjective. VAR is only going to amplify this.

Personally I think the media need to stop analysing the VAR decisions in such detail. View it, make a a few comments on it, respect the referee's decision and move on and analyse other bits of the game. They (the media) are just undermining the authority of the referees the more they go on about it.

[PeteB99]

For some of the decisions where there is a matter of fact to be settled VAR is fine - offside or not / inside or outside the area / which player committed the offence. Where it struggles is when interpretation is required - was there intent to touch the ball? was a tackle dangerous or just clumsy in these cases VAR is just adding another opinion to the mix.

Has any referee when called to review a decision gone with his original decision yet?

[citoyen]

quality pundits

Very few of those in evidence in the TV coverage.

I quite like Roy Keane - someone who at least knows when to stop talking - but that's about it.

[DuncanM]

As that Guardian article shows, what's happened is that it has increased the arguments about certain decisions (the Poulsen handball was the most extreme case so far). If quality pundits (not Lawro et al but actual people who understand the modern game) and ex-referees can't agree about a decision having all viewed the same footage then there's no hope for it. It just shows that the application of the rules relies upon too much interpretation and is too subjective. VAR is only going to amplify this.

If it's the case that 2 qualified people, given the same data come up with 2 different answers, then the rules are insufficiently clear.

The "in the opinion of the referee" stuff was fine when you trusted him (and it was mostly hims) to do the job, and it was possible for a human to do a reasonable job, but with the pace of the game these days, and the willingness of the players to do whatever it takes to win, it's not sufficient to rely on 1 ref (and 2 assistants) any more. It would be a really interesting project to teach an AI to watch a game and pick out the fouls.  I bet they would pick up on hundreds of little things that aren't legal but are accepted. Maybe that's the ultimate iteration of VAR - AIAR?

[Nuncio]

Salah is another who relies on being part of a strong team. He's been entirely anonymous in both of Egypt's games so far - partly down to not being fully fit, I guess, but he doesn't have anyone of the calibre of Firmino to play off in that Egypt team.

I don't think it's fair to blame Salah for being anonymous in the first of Egypt's games.

[citoyen]

I don't think it's fair to blame Salah for being anonymous in the first of Egypt's games.

You might have a point there.

Not that he made an awful lot more impact in their second game though.

[Von Broad]

BrazilvCosta - fascinating game.
Big moment for Mr VAR in the second half [as you will see if you missed it] - best referee so far bar none. Fair play to that chap.

[mattc]

I don't think it's fair to blame Salah for being anonymous in the first of Egypt's games.

You might have a point there.

Not that he made an awful lot more impact in their second game though.

I think he was playing with the Egypt team in that one, too!   

[De Sisti]

Switzerland v Serbia; yet another incident, in this case two defenders wrestling a striker
to the ground. Why are the refs scared of giving penalties for these fouls?


Made me laugh in the Croatia v Argentina game where Croatia broke for the third goal.
An Argentina defender raising his arm for offside; only there was one of his colleagues
nearer the goal line attempting to stop the ball from going into the net.

[toontra]

Cracking goal from Shaqiri (soon to be with LFC - hopefully  )

[citoyen]

Great result for the neutrals.