In principle I'm broadly in favour of VAR and I don't think we're getting terrible disruption to matches. But with all tweaks to the rules of the game certain unforeseen phenomena occur. One of these I've noticed in the Serbia v Costa Rica and Brazil v Switzerland matches. It goes as follows
- Player is accidentally brushed in the jaw.
- In normal football the player either gets on with it or, if he thinks there's a good chance the ref will be conned, he goes down clutching his face, but gets up quickly if the ref isn't impressed.
- In post-VAR football, the player stays down for a minute to try to initiate a video review. The Costa Rican defender did it to try to get Prijovic sent off and succeeded in initiating a review (which resulted in a harsh yellow card). Lichtsteiner did the same against Brazil - no review, I believe.
It's not a reason to do away with video evidence, but it's shabby.
Unforeseen VAR consequences
posted on 18/6/18
I'd rather they had challenges like the hawk eye in tennis, plus retrospective action to cheating cants
posted on 18/6/18
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 58 seconds ago
Wish we could go back to pre-VAR when there was no diving, feigning injury and play acting ...
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posted on 18/6/18
VAR moment right now
posted on 18/6/18
comment by Scruttocks (U19684)
posted 30 seconds ago
VAR moment right now
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Its done the right thing but the lack of clarity is an issue. What's to stop the S Korea player just kicking the ball out of play to stop the VAR possibility
posted on 18/6/18
"Can't think of any game that has been slowed down, nor anyone not celebrating a goal."
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Rugby Union. I can't stand it in Rugby Union. Constantly reviewing tries or incidents and coming to debatable decisions. And that's even more stop-start than football.
And yes, I appreciate the irony of VAR just getting a big decision right in the Sweden match as I'm typing this.
posted on 18/6/18
comment by Shaun M - You're only here, to watch Saiz... (U9955)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Scruttocks (U19684)
posted 30 seconds ago
VAR moment right now
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Its done the right thing but the lack of clarity is an issue. What's to stop the S Korea player just kicking the ball out of play to stop the VAR possibility
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Why would kicking the ball out of play stop the VAR possibility?
posted on 18/6/18
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 22 minutes ago
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 40 seconds ago
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 5 minutes ago
Players have always gone down if they are hit in the face, this is not something new brought about by VAR.
A lot of players use a "head injury" to stop play and get their team a breather. Same with 'keepers going down.
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The novel nuance brought about by VAR is that they stay down for longer in the hope of triggering a review.
I do think there should be some punishment for clear cases of frivolously / dishonestly attempting to induce VAR.
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I haven't seen any of that. Just the normal. Think you are just trying to find faults in VAR that aren't there.
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Why would I be looking to find faults when I explicitly think it's on balance a good thing?
Did you see the incidents with Lichtsteiner and the Costa Rican defender staying down for ages? Both stayed down for way longer than usual, having obviously not been hurt. It's pretty clear that the only motivation for staying down, once the referee had let play go on, was to attract the attention of the video ref.
The rational response to this isn't to scrap VAR, but to introduce disincentives to this behaviour.
posted on 18/6/18
There is a flip side to this though, Pepe went down holding his face when Spain scored their first goal the other night. The chances a ref might fall for it are a bit less now as they can instead allow play to develop (and a goal to be scored) and use VAR to revert the decision afterwards.
Had Pepe stayed on his feet, he’d have been in a position to still be able to potentially defend the attack, so it’s got just as much chance of stopping players feigning injury.
I’m not a fan of VAR at all though!
posted on 18/6/18
Did you see the incidents with Lichtsteiner and the Costa Rican defender staying down for ages?
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Neither was down for any time longer than I have seen players go down without VAR. And with Lichtsteiner there was no signalling to the ref with an elbow to suggest foul play.
posted on 18/6/18
The WC system is leaps and bounds better than the one in the VAR!
I think if the REF had a smart watch or a phone who could access with the replays then there would be even more time taken out