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What do we make of this then?

surprised this has had no replies,  with it being such a potentially game changing piece of technology, or whatever anybody chooses to call it.

i am an extremely keen, and equally clueless, armchair fan, liverpool for the record.

i listened to the match on radio. went to sleep before MOTD,  half heartedly  read a couple of tabloids in the canteen on my morning break. have not seen footage of either penalty.

none of that will ever alter my simple, and probably altruistic view.

please please mr FA , if you insist on going ahead with VAR , only ever use it for if the ball has crossed the line. leave penalty decisions to the referee, god help us if we start looking at offside decisions, if he makes a really obvious mistake , then suck it up, rather than debating it with
how ever many extra officials that you deem necessary.

its only been going 2 weeks or so, it is already a laughing stock. 

I agree with you. Linear decisions only please and leave all of the subjective stuff to the refs.

A reversion to the old offside rule which everybody understood would be good too instead of all the second phase clear as mud stuff we have now.

Maybe take a lead from tennis's hawkeye and let each team appeal the VAR 3 times each half?

Football chiefs have released a statement on Jon Moss, saying his reference to TV was "misguided". Read more: http://bbc.in/2E4RzfR

From Portugal. Boavista concede a goal that looks like it could well be offside. They have VAR and go to the camera which is obscured by a Boavista fans massive flag. As a result VAR is inconclusive and the goal is allowed to stand! That guy with the flag is not going to be popular...

https://streamable.com/phm4x

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWQcnBeX0AAj9GJ.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWQcnBeX0AAj9GJ.jpg)

Laughable

Was the groundsman somewhat inebriated when he painted those white lines or...

Amusing as it might be for it to happen to Spurs, wtaf with ruling out Lamela's goal. How was it even referred and how, if it was, do they find enough to rule it out. Someone gets paid to make that decision..fumming

Fuckin joke, it's like the ref hasn't got any eyes anymore and the more they look the more anti-football decisions they make. Just pointless. Im switching off

You might want to switch it back on for a bit now..

AHA!

We have found Nirvana's Achilles Heel. Who'd have thunk it that VAR would turn our resident sardonic wit into a gibbering one-eyed footy monster.

Must be said that the refs are doing their best to fuck the whole VAR thing up. Tilting how they wait for aaaaggggeeeessss for the VAR-man to make his bloody mind up. And then they get it wrong. FFS.

It works really well doesn't it?

Decisions are generally right using the VAR?

TV broadcasts seem intent on calling VAR decisions and the time they take 'controversies' when what they really mean is we needed the controversies that bad decision making brought so we could talk about it for days. Now they are getting them right we will pretend that adding 5 mins in added time per half is really bad in exchange for getting the decisions right.

Any fan that goes to a match or watches one on TV that has the VAR system but still complains knowing  there is likely to be 5-10 minutes added to each half just needs to wake up IMO. The right decisions are being made. Why does it matter if a half of football last for 50 or 55 minutes in those games?

isnt it incredible that a sport/Fans/TV channels that have complained for years  over bad decisions changing games are now complaining because the decisions are now being made correctly but it takes 5 minutes?

A 1hour NFL game takes 3 hours to play. And people are moaning  because as 90 minute football match might take 100 minutes to play but be reffed in a much fairer way. How does that make sense?

Any football decision that takes more than about 10 seconds is almost certainly not achieving the objective which was to overturn ridic decisions. Spending 2 mins trying to determine if someones thigh is offside is just changing the game too much imo. It actually ruins the watching and I can't see how any person who actually likes watching football could think otherwise

If you're a fan attending the games you really don't spend yr money to watch the ref fk about and adding 10 mins to 'correct' such marginal decisions doesn't add anything to the game or the spectacle.

NFL is a game of a hundred set plays, like cricket, like Baseball, of course no one cares if it takes 3 hours because that's the norm.

It might turn out fine but needs a lot of tweaks to make it worth the intrusion

Cricket, rugby union, rugby league, NFL - you can hear either the officials or the video ref or both. What do they say to each other in football that demands secrecy?

There urgently needs to be some way to keep the crowd in the ground informed too.

Everyone i have spoke to who watches the NFL can't understand why each manager in soccer doesn't just get a 'flag' for each half.  One challenge and it is up to the managers (and their teams in the stand via ear piece) to decide when to challenge.  If the manager has no issue with a decision made at the time why does the ref feel the need to get involved and change it?  Isn't this just so simple it should be obvious?

Dinosaur.

I agree with most of that, Phil, the only thing I'd say is that in football they need to communicate better what is happening, as they do in NFL, where the Zebra bloke has a microphone & a set of agreed hand signals to let everyone know what's going off.

It's just so easy for the TV Commentators to sit & diss everything, but they don't have to make decisions & have the world & his wife second-guessing & aftertiming.

The time it takes was precisely the problem I could see with VAR all along. In pretty much every game something like this has been introduced to it has started out as being something to avoid obvious errors but has ended up being routinely referred to make sure wrong decisions don't get made at all; the faster the game is to start with the more impact this is going to have.

Compare the attitude from before it was introduced:

With Mourinho's comment a couple of weeks ago


I think if the idea that VAR has to be 100% correct takes hold then it's just going to get worse and worse - they really should be trying to steer it back to the original idea of fixing clear errors to keep the game on track.

how or who refers it in the instance of a "clear" error? it's only clear to us as we get to see it over and over from different angles.

As above

I could be wrong, but there does not seem to be a clear protocol in place. It seems that the VAR intervened in order to overrule the ref's decision to let the first goal stand. Today, pretty much every observer (including Keith Hackett) has said that VAR was not required and the goal should have stood.

Surely VAR should only be referred to if the ref specifically requests it; OR if the VAR is sure that the ref has missed (being unsighted, for example) a key event (goal/penalty/serious foul play) - and at this point the ref should have access to a monitor to view the key footage.

The worry in the meantime is that the players and managers will increasingly demand the use of VAR for all sorts. Games last last night's will only increase their inclination.

Finally, for the record, whilst it would be preferred that correct decisions could be made more quickly, I'd be prepared to wait a couple of minutes for the right decision. But if it takes a couple of minutes to arrive at the wrong decision (disallowing the first Spurs goal), this only undermines the stated goals of the VAR, and gives the anti-VAR brigade more of a case.

I think VAR is complete rhubarb. Waiting a lifetime in silence for the Wizard of Oz to pass judgement on who knows what is plain boring. Mistakes and luck are part of the sport and part of the fun. Yeah but those decisions can cost a multi-million pound football club a million pounds. So what tho??

Sure enough all those other sports can grind to a halt to pursuit clinical technical correctness but why follow suit? EPL football is a high octane toboggan ride so just hang on and enjoy, be raw and authentic instead. My biggest worry is for the future of the most popular and passionate chants in the game. I mean "the referee's a wanker", "who's the wanker in the black" and "you don't know what you're doing" have been crowd favourites for years. Sad times.

Oh and don't be surprised when the super quick commercial breaks for Deep Heat or whatever kick in during the decision making process.

LOL, MANTIS, so true.

But on the plus side, VAR has killed off the daft and rather embarrassingly contrived goal celebrations. My blood boiled as I pondered the amount of training ground time that must've been invested in these ridic routines.

Yah, anybody who dabs can fuck off

But then again there was this...

VAR will be used at the World Cup in Russia this summer and forever more!

Great 😂 potential for epic cockups as it will be most of the referees' first experience of it

Danny Murphy made a solid point on football focus today. Fans go to football to feel that fist-pump emotion of celebrating a goal. If we keep robbing them of that pleasure, overturning it, denying it in return for 'correct decisions' we are dicing with what made football successful in the first place. A few wrong decisions to fuel the passion seems a decent trade off to me cos dicking about with the magic formula is a dangerous business.

Saw a figure which said out of 46 VAR overturns in the Bundesliga 11 have been shown to be wrong.

It didn't say how long they were disrupting the game for when these decisions have been made but it's irrelevant either way.

If they're making quick VAR decisions which are wrong then they're obviously not clear mistakes and it's basically one referee deciding a different referee's judgement was wrong.

If they're taking a long time over it then there's really no excuse - disrupting the game for longer and still getting it wrong should completely kill it.

Think that is the one area it can improve, the 3rd umpire in cricket, NFL and RL adds to the excitement where admittedly the current VAR system doesn't. At the end of the day the right decisions are being made tho so when they get around to fine tuning it it will be a great addition to the sport imo.

*waits for the half time whistle to blow and players to leave the pitch till going for refreshments*

"There's your pie and bovril, mate. So what was all that noise about?"

"You missed a penalty".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43795556 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43795556)

 ;gobsmacked;

VAR enhancing this World Cup imo, quick, efficient and getting the close decisions right. A big help to the refs.

I agree. Deffo right to overturn the Brazil pen.

Ha, just posted the same in the WC thread - i'm coming round fast

Totally agree

Also think it adds to the drama - that suspense when the ref is reviewing...loving it!

Hasn't the ref overruled the original decision every time he's gone to look at the monitor?

The sweat is watching a man hold his finger to an earpiece which could be improved upon.

If it reduces diving in the box a la Neymar, which I think it will, I'm all for it.

why do we think the VAR guys in the lobby are doing nothing about wrestling in the box?

Kane?

Mitrovic last night?

this seems the one "blind spot" of a system that is working well

by the by, it also has betting impolications

no 0-0s yet, more penalties given.

friend of mine had a stray tenner on no 0-0's in the tournament at 40-1. Is beginning to get excited. He says he anticipated that VAR would lead to more pens!

I used to scowl at tv when players waved an imaginary red card to the ref after incidents.

Now though, players are surrounding the ref and drawing an imaginary tv screen with their fingers. Pretty com.

I took a look at the penalty markets on bet365 out of interest. I don't know what they were before but you can get 7/4 on a penalty being awarded in each of the upcoming games. i think there's been 12 in the 20 game sample so far. I assume the prices post-VAR have adjusted though.

I believe it was usually anywhere from 4 to 6/1 depending on teams. So they e been cut quite significantly

Going to be fun In the knockout stages when the stakes go up. Chaos tonight with VAR

The BBC's attitude towards Var is disgraceful. Lawrenson is bad enough but the end of the Portugal game there is embarrassing from the studio guests too.

The commentator in the Spain game actually said after Spain's disallowed goal which was correctly overturned to get them a point 'it will be sad if a game like this is decided by a VAR decision'. That's exactly what VAR was brought in to do you idiot. The goal was disallowed, was a fair goal and was then given as a goal after VAR was used. That's perfect and it decided the result correctly. Why would that be 'sad' in any way

In the Portugal game the Penalty given after consulting VAR is rightly ridiculed and the entire panel tell us how ridiculous the VAR system is. But the VAR system didn't award the penalty, after using the system the ref gave a penalty which was never ever a penalty. So the ref made a mistake after consulting the VAR system. That is a refereeing mistake.

I know. That ref definitely wants putting out to grass.

Chaos if you spend your time listening to the utter rubbish on TV panels and commentators trying to create controversy.

I just assume that Lawrenson is just an old fart who is too resistant to change.  How can the odd bad decision be worse than several more bad decisions? 

I'm a big fan of Var, but I don't understand how a referee can watch something several times, including stop frame and slow motion, and still get it completely wrong.

The Ronaldo pen was a definite pen wasn't it ? Someone please confirm as the idiot Lawrenson has me doubting my own eyes

Yep, clear penalty.

Cheers, I feel better now :-)

The controversy seems to be all on the handballs. They are giving penalties for contact with the hand/arm if it is in an ‘unnatural position’. It’s like a new interpretation of ‘deliberate’. Something along the lines of, deliberately putting your arm in a position where you may gain an advantage by blocking the path of the ball, when there is no other good reason for your arm to be there. The decision for the Iran penalty is just a shocker.

I would say that hand ball is one of the only few spot this can happen Tom.  Technically it was hand ball but surely accidental on this occasion, for the ref to decide it was deliberate was terrible. The Spain game was decided by an over turned offside decision, offsides and ball over the line etc should be given correct almost all the time in those spots. Handball going to be one of the grey areas in the system.

In the Portugal game there was an off the ball incident where Ronaldo went out of his way to make contact with his elbow to an opponents neck. The incident was reviewed by VAR and I thought it was a sending off because he set out to strike the opposition player. He was given a yellow card which felt like a cop out to be honest, as in the ref determined he was guilty but only gave him a yellow. Deciding deliberate acts still going to be tricky using the VAR system but on this occasion Ronaldo deserved to be punished when he wasn’t originally even tho the ref still had to make a call regarding how deliberate it was.

Doobs made a good point imo, the cov on TV seems to think it’s still better to have loads of bad decisions in a game without VAR instead of having the ability to over turn incorrect decisions however many times they happen.

I'd kind of always interpreted deliberate handball along these lines in terms of being in an unnatural place as well as obviously moving hand to ball. Like you say, the Iran pen was just nonsense.

VAR struggles more with these things that heavily rely on individual refereeing style - ie there's every chance that on a given decision some will agree, some won't which isn't a criticism of VAR per se but still leaves the game imperfect which I think I'm OK with.

Like the Ronaldo booking perhaps - I can see some refs thinking that's a red whereas I thought it was nothing at all but VAR isn't the issue really. Hopefully, over time, the VAR guys off the pitch, will become better judges at only stopping the game for pretty obvious errors

Ha, its difficult, wasn't posting in response to Bobby but we both saw an incident and saw it completely differently- I thought the Iranian player deliberately tried to obstruct Ronaldo and it's fairly common when playing to put your arm over / across the other guys shoulder to get in front of him. It might be foul if he doesn't give the original obstruction but wouldn't see it as a red

I think Lawrenson blurts out stuff before he thinks about it, and because he's painted himself into a corner regarding the Ronaldo penalty incident, he refuses to adjust his position. A bit childish really. Like his EPL predictions that Liverpool will never lose, lol.

Shearer, on the other hand, I find a bit more disappointing. He was a vocal critic of VAR from the outset, and he can't help deriding the system whenever there's any kind of error or delay in the process. Even though we're all in a far better place, having 80% of decisions made correctly - even if with a slight delay - rather than less than 50%c (my estimates). He was the only anti-VAR pundit on the show, and he's beginning to make a fool of himself, which is a shame.

The VAR investigation into Spain's equaliser was brought about by the lino being a little too fast with his flag. I think the ref would've simply given the goal. Easy for me to say from my armchair, but the striker always looked level with the last defender. I thought it became a little comical in the BBC studio when they said that the Spanish forward's elbow was exactly level with the Moroccan defender's foot. Thank the lord that the goal wasn't disallowed on the basis of an elbow being closer to goal than the foot....

Comedy listening to TV dinosaurs moaning about VAR.

Lawrenson is such a dick. Shearer is old before his time. Steve Wilson puts in plenty of research but hasn't got a clue what he's watching most of the time.

Can't stand in the way of progress.

Ball goes into crowd.

Lawrenson: We're in Russia, that's never coming back.

.

So good

The other great thing for me, and the complete opposite of the general view when VAR was introduced is the amount of injury time that going to VAR creates.

Both last nights games and that Germany game had superb endings because VAR takes away minutes at less important moments in the game and adds them to the end, where the teams now know exactly what they need to do.

So all the 'how long it takes etc etc' is actually adding to the excitement of the games.

Obviously this is knockout football so end of matches become more crucial but it is making football more exciting, fairer and adding to the tension.

Wasn't that South Korea goal enough to persuade the luddites?   In past World cups that goal would have been disallowed and it is a lot less likely that the second would follow.   South Korea would likely have gone home without that great victory against Germany on their resume.  Sure it doesn't make a difference to the rest of the tournament, but it sure mattered to them.

The incident itself is surely enough of an argument to persuade the luddites. <3 VAR.

The sentimental knock-on effect is irrelevant though. It could've been the other way around and VAR denies Korea that joy.

Fair point.