It was black and white from one of the angles that the Japanese player stuck out his leg , did not touch the ball and instead hit the leg of Cavani. That is a penalty.
Since you and the African poster want to go down this rabbit hole of favoritism... .... how about the non black and white call that went to Qatar the smaller team against Colombia. Telemundo kept on showing that a penalty could have been called when Tesillo crossed the ball and it hit the hand of the Qatar player. All this conspiracy things and favoritism banter just seems ridiculous to me.
Agree there wasn't much to be suspicious about with that incident. I was referring more to the stonewall penalty in the Uruguay box that both the ref and VAR ignored. The fact that it was deemed not worthy of even a second look should raise some eyebrows.
IF I remember correctly the Telemundo ref Analyst (Dracula) said that on a play like that it is not an automatic yellow. So it was not black and white either according to someone who reffed official matches at that level but it does not prove a conspiracy or bias
the main thing I am saying is that VAR can be just as subjective as no VAR. When decisions are left to subjective interpretations, bias whether conscious or subconscious becomes a part of the equation. I am not saying there is a "conspiracy" I am saying that bias is a part of the game, and VAR does not stop bias, even though it should. One thing will be called in one game, and that exact same thing will not be called in another. There is no consistency at all. Bias plays a part in some cases.
Human nature is human nature. I think we can agree on that. However, according to studies VAR increases the correct call on the field by about 6%. That I see as a good thing not as something to criticize.
Subjectivity doesn't have to go along with bias. It is just subjectivity because many plays ... well ... need subjective interpretation. At least with VAR, the ref sees some plays he may not have seen without it. Then he can make a subjective call that sometimes can be easy ... but sometimes also still controversial. How many times you have people disagreeing on the same play after reviews from tons of angles ?
Difficult to know how they computed that. What's the denominator? 6% of what? But its true that it probably decreases the number of matches where the result is altered by a blown call. Of course that would be true if VAR was used for nothing other than black-and-white issues like offside, ball crossing the goal line or not, etc. I think VAR works great on such calls. On subjective calls, there is still a lot of work to do. Such as: - does VAR have to interfere so much (e.g. an 'incident' happens, 10 passes and 30 seconds later the ball goes in the net -- do we really need to go back to look to look at the incident?) - stop the damn clock when reviewing a play; - make the decisions faster. Its like they are having some sort of democratic vote upstairs, with a ballot box and everything. What are they doing up there? If it takes more than 3 replays to decide if the ref should look at it again, obviously its not a clear and obvious wrong call; - ref should not be allowed to look at slo-motion replays. Real speed only; - fans in the stadium should be able to see what the VAR is looking at. Its not right that the people who are funding the existence of the sport are totally excluded. Not even given basic information like what the delay is for.
When it comes to the stats I posted an article about it months ago in the FIFA forum. But yes they do not go into detail on how they calculated the percentage. But that is moot. They see the right calls more often due to replay. All of those things you list are part of the growing pains I have been mentioning. As the years go by and it becomes uniform and routine it should get a whole lot better.
Mate, I hate to burst your bubble but VAR has been implemented almost 3 years ago and its just as bad now as it was 3 years ago. Like I said, I don't mind it for clear and obvious calls but not for much minimal problems which just ruins the flow of the game and the emotion, the reason we fell in love with the sport.
IT was first implemented in this Confederation for this tournament for National teams. CONMEBOL needs time to perfect it. I love the sport more when the call is right on the field. And more often than not VAR gets it right. More times than without it.
Have fun with a passionless sport then. VAR has been indefendable in this tournament as well as the Womens World Cup.
VAR has added more passion and points of conversation from what I have seen. Many of the conversations here and other places has been about VAR. 4 years ago what was the talk about the Copa America?????? Neymar getting suspended? Some weird butt play in the Chile-Uruguay match? Chile finally winning the tournament? Other than that people really did not talk about the Copa or have memories of what happened in a passionate manner.
There is no passion to be found. That is bogus. Nobody can celebrate any goals. Venezuela have conceded 4 goals and all 4 have been ruled out. 2 of them rightly, the other one you have to search into the most recent rule book to find what went wrong.
I have seen plenty of goal celebrations. Some invalid and voided but that is because they should learn to stay onside and follow basic rules.
You are cherry picking at this point. You say "it adds something to discuss". It does but for all the wrong reasons. No one knows to celebrate a goal anymore! I certainly don't a lot. VAR ruins the emotion for me. Like I said it could be fine if it is used for clear and obvious errors but for fringe rules that no one knows about, pointless. Not even the players protest in those situations.
And the funny thing is Refs and Confederations can't win here. I heard earlier today that the African Cup decided not to have VAR implemented until the knockouts. A BeIN Sports commentator who is South African said there are going to be teams that will be angry if they get eliminated on a bad play that VAR could have changed. Point is people are going to complain no matter what. Might as well embrace the future and be patient with its current deficiencies. It is better than the alternative in my book.
Buddy, we are talking about corrupt federations and incompetent refs. In 3 years, all VAR has proven is that it will never work in this sport, because it has regressed in 3 years rather than improved. Give over. There is no defending it at least in this tournament or the Womens World Cup. I wouldn't be surprised if the players boycott at some point. A bit extreme, but I don't see much excitement in them at the moment. A few have already spoken out in protest of it.
Agree to disagree. I think you are wrong, I believe it worked well for its first implementation of the World Cup. And it is getting the calls right in this tournament. It is not perfect but no one ever said it is.
It was fine in the World Cup. I (as well as many others) care about a watchable sport more than justice especially when it comes to rules nobody has ever heard of. If we use it like it was in the World Cup, its in the watchable category. This Copa however, it's been a disaster, correct calls or not.
Taking it to an extreme. If it is unwatchable then why are you watching and arguing about the things you are watching? Sounds a bit weird to me.
It is to me. When people learn about obscure rules and know that even those have to be applied. When people realize that this is a sport that should be about the rule of law and not ancillary things like passion and celebrations as a priority.