IdleRich

IdleRich
Shearer responded to the results with the kind of good-natured sportsmanship for which we English are justly famed...

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Meanwhile, when you look from this angle it seems pretty clear VAR got it wrong

Fi7At7fXoAAngFS.jpeg


Or as I saw it rather childishly put "For you Fritz ze VAR is over".
 

catalog

Well-known member
Yeah that's the angle I saw. Bug they were saying something about the curvature of the ball keeping it in so that the fact you see grass between ball and line does not mean that it was out, cos of bulge.
 

jenks

thread death
the thing is - when there is a dispute about whether the ball is over the line for a goal, they usually rustle up the graphic which shows the decision in minutes - the chip in the ball giving the officials a clear image. so, why haven't they produced that picture? they must have it, surely. Otherwise, how they did they make the decision?
 

catalog

Well-known member
yes exactly, that's why it's a job for forensic architecture. it's a bit fishy.

i think the inference from the referree guy was that they might not have a clear shot without foot in the way or something? so they maybe have only assumed it themselves. i guess that's plausible. but then they were saying there's been a fe wothers where they could have shown the proof but haven't
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah that's the angle I saw. Bug they were saying something about the curvature of the ball keeping it in so that the fact you see grass between ball and line does not mean that it was out, cos of bulge.
I suppose that that is conceivably possible - that there is a gap between ball and line at the bottom, but if you extended the line upwards then it would cut through the ball. Hmmm. In that picture it looks out to the naked eye - but given that they can apply measurements to the ball and say for certain - and I think that the ball also has a sensor in it which must mean that they can say exactly where that sensor needs to be for it to be in or out... assuming that the sensor is working correctly. But now I'm going right down a rabbit hole... that way madness lies. The only thing I would say is that it just looks further out than a lot of ones that have been ruled out of play. Let's be honest, the main thing is, Japan are through, Germany are out - fuck 'em.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
If there is doubt on a call of this nature or offside etc then I feel that the benefit should go to the attacking side.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i was just talking about it with this guy at work and we were thinking they should make it like tennis or cricket where each side gets 3 opportunities to query and that's it.
 

catalog

Well-known member
such a stupid system they've ended up with, cos it seems a lot of it is political and about what the point of a ref is if you've got this tech. that seems the wrestle.
 

sufi

lala
such a stupid system they've ended up with, cos it seems a lot of it is political and about what the point of a ref is if you've got this tech. that seems the wrestle.
I suspect that the imprecision is part of the joy - footer would not have the same visceral appeal if it didnt have potential for endless ball-aching conversations about decisions? @IdleRich

i wonder how that contrasts with the rigorous approach in US sports @Leo
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Been talking about this a little on the other thread. I think VAR was brought in with the stated aim of overturning clear and obvious errors - Maradona's handball against England, Neuer cheating against England, or perhaps when Koeman cheated against England to randomly pick three horrendous and famous refereeing errors.

However, they seem to be using it to try and attain a perfection that can never really be achieved, and the result is that the game is being slowed down hugely for very little gain.

To me VAR should work as follows - you have people in a box watching VAR, after every decision by the ref, the players in that box have twenty seconds to press a button which says "wrong" - they only press that button if they are certain it was wrong. If a majority (three or more) of the officials press that button in the twenty seconds following then it's overruled. If, in 20 seconds, they are not sure it was wrong, then it was not a clear error and the game continues. I'm not interested in microscopic offsides invisible to the naked eye in which the player clearly didn't seek to gain an advantage by being 05mm ahead of the defender. I'm interested in the removal of embarrassing errors where ten seconds after the incident, everyone at home or in the stadium knows that the ref cocked up or the scorer was 3m was offside. Huge errors of that nature should be speedily removed. That's it, no long delays, no decisions where the ref couldn't have possibly got it right or the player clearly couldn't have done it deliberately. Just that. What we're stuck with is a fuck-up, nothing like what we were promised - it's exactly like brexit really.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i mean, maybe that could work, i dunno. where it would get problematic would be where you've got the offside or the handball leading to the goal and how far to take things back. that's the othe rcompluicated thing with footie. the real-time knock-on effects of things. the drama itself influencing players and what they do.

that's where it's a lot more complex than cricket or tennis i suppose.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yeah that is a very big question, how far back do you go? Do you remember one in the nations league thing which was one of the most bizarre decisions I've ever seem? I forget the teams, have a feeling Portugal were involved but could be wrong - anyway, one team took a corner and the team defending it cleared and broke quickly putting together a dangerous move that culminated in one of their players being chopped down in the box. Seemed a clear penalty but for some reason ref went to look at the screens, starting at what was arguably the obvious point, the corner. And as he looked at the whole thing as part of the penalty check for the breaking team, he noticed an infringement in the box at the start of the break - and in the end he gave a penalty to the other team! I'm not sure if I'm saying that clearly, but as a result of a VAR check on whether or not team A should get a penalty, the final decision was a penalty for team B.

That is obviously crazy - ok, it was in the Nations League which is a glorified friendly, but suppose that that happened in the world cup final - imagine that it was Turkey or Columbia or something, people would definitely get killed in the protests over a decision like that.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I suspect that the imprecision is part of the joy - footer would not have the same visceral appeal if it didnt have potential for endless ball-aching conversations about decisions? @IdleRich

i wonder how that contrasts with the rigorous approach in US sports @Leo

I mentioned earlier that I like the human judgement aspect of officials making the calls, it brings a wild card X factor of human error, interpretation, and sometimes even partisanship, that makes a game interesting.

All US sports now use video replay, and a call on the field can be overturned after review. in US football, teams are allowed to challenge a call only a few time (three, I think?) per game, so that the game doesn't drag out longer with endless replays. and if a team challenges a call and it's not overturned, that team loses one of their allotted time outs. that means they have to be more strategic about which calls to challenge, has to be ones that are genuinely close and they have a decent chance of overturning.

One exception is baseball, where they use video replay for all calls except balls and strikes called by the home plate umpire. those are still 100% human judgments, so at least they've maintained one X factor.
 

Leo

Well-known member
there are also instances where even when viewed on video replay, the play is so close that it could literally go either way. in those cases, officials usual let the call on the field stand, the burden of proof is on the challenger.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
there are also instances where even when viewed on video replay, the play is so close that it could literally go either way. in those cases, officials usual let the call on the field stand, the burden of proof is on the challenger.
That is exactly the common sense approach that I would like to see adopted in football.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Anyway, did anyone watch the games that have just finished? The final group games have produced a lot of excitement with goals flying in all over, unexpected results and the tables changing from one second to the next. Today South Korea got the winner against Portugal in the 91st minute after going behind in the first half - and I think that goal eliminated Uruguay despite their two goal victory over Ghana. Something that must have been sickening for poor old Suarez.

I understand that last time Uruguay played Ghana Suarez cleared the ball off the line with his hand in the last minute, he was sent off but Ghana missed the penalty and so Uruguay knocked them out. I think that some were hoping/expecting him to apologise for that but he said something like "I committed the foul and they got the penalty but they missed it so it's their fault" - something which, unlike with his racist comments or when he kept biting people, I actual find myself in partial agreement with... most of Ghana didn't feel the same however and were reportedly enraged.

I do feel that Suarez's mouth keeps getting him into trouble (and not just when he bites people) - I'm particularly thinking of the Barcelona v Liverpool tie in the CL when, after Barcelona won the first leg 3 - 0, Suarez solemnly announced that he wouldn't celebrate any goals or the result in the second leg as Liverpool were of course his old club. A comment that was gleefully seized on by the Liverpool faithful after they smashed them 4 - 0 and eliminated them from the tournament... taking great pleasure in pointing out that he had not celebrated at all, not through forbearing but because they had been utterly humiliated and he was left with nothing whatsoever to celebrate.

He is or has been an utterly fantastic player though and I guess that a lot of the hatred from the English is due to the goal he scored that knocked them out of the 2014 world cup - for me a sublimely taken goal, evidence (if any were needed) of what a brilliant striker he was in that he barely touched the ball throughout the game, and then in the 85th minute or so he had one half-chance and mercilessly gobbled it up.

And yet, the wheel turns and this time it will be his lot going home after a cruel late goal in other game... so fuck off Suarez, doubt we'll see you at another world cup you racist biting cunt.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ha ha, Cameroon just took the lead against Brazil in the 90th minute - now they have to protect that lead for nine minutes with ten men cos the prick got sent off for taking his shirt off!
 

jenks

thread death
Shaquiri and Xhaka having fun at the Serbs’ expense. This one was always going to cut up rough. Plenty of bad blood. No double headed eagle celebrations this time.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Aaaaaaaand... there it is, the first round is finished, no team has nine points, which to me suggests a lack of any totally dominant team and a very open looking world cup which is very hard to predict. Lots of good games, but I didn't really see any great teams... maybe the strongest is France who dropped points in the last game after resting nine of their first choice players having already guaranteed qualification. But right now it's wide open as far as I can tell.
 
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