VAR got involved with a PK in Kansas City. Geiger took about 10 seconds at the TV screen before waving it off. I initially thought it was a PK, but I think it was the correct decision after seeing the replay from the touch line that VAR used.
and now another VAR decision with a send off and freekick just outside the penalty area. At least he's been decisive and quick about it
Well, for the same reason national teams get new uniforms. Of course it’s partly money. But every major tournament gets a “look” that becomes part of soccer history. And the visual of the referees plays a role in that—it wouldn’t feel right anymore if referees were wearing the same style and look for 3 or 4 tournaments. Adidas has done pretty well. But I think they’ve fallen flat this time.
If VAR was used like this all the time, I think I could live with it. It was pretty quick and I think the right call was made in both cases (though it took the last angle I saw to finally convince me). The ball that led to the send-off on the second VAR review was a long ball over the top. I can see why Geiger would have had a tough time to keep up with that long ball. If anything, the AR should have had a good view and been able to see the foul and the position. Bottom line, however, is that the right call was made and VAR did its job in a manner that didn't disrupt the game's flow all that much.
That's damn close. Its any part of the body that can legally play the ball of the defender that sets the line, right? If that Portland defender is leading at all towards goal (hard to tell from the angle) he could be onside.
You are correct that it's the part of the body that can play the ball. In cases like this when the camera isn't directly in line with the offside line, the defenders upper body looks closer to the goal line than it really is. Even when the defender is leaning, his shoulder is more or less directly above his foot. You can try this at home. Stand with two feet on the ground and lean towards the side. You'll notice you can't lean very far without falling on your face. So it's possible the defenders shoulder is a couple inches closer to the goal line than his left foot, but it wouldn't be a foot or two.
I don't know what the case is in this circumstance, but you can lean much further when in motion than from a standing start. So a "home test" isn't really proof of much.
Literally the only explanation that makes sense here is that the VAR felt the video showed it was outside the area and thus not eligible for further review. No question it was a missed foul call, at minimum.
I've wondered if I'm just crazy when it comes to "the look" with kits. But from a super-over-analyzing perspective, I'm sure there's a social psychology effect that having "older looking" uniforms would have on players. "Refs can't even get new shirts", "referee looks like they've been wearing that since the 90's", etc. I've noticed it even at lower leagues with the new OSI shirts. Referees just look better. They can be just as good or worse than they were last year, but they look the part.
I do think money certainly drives most of this and certainly drove Adidas to have different kits for the UCL and UEL. The more they can put on television, the more they can sell (though the abandonment of the policy in the UEL shows their are market limits). But I also think there are a number of very good reasons why the kits get rotated regularly at the professional level. You've hit on another one. A parallel reason is the push for referees to look more like athletes. That's why you saw the collars changed and adapted throughout the past 16 years or so to stay--for the most part--in line with what players were wearing at the same time. Again, this version just seems inexplicable, though. It's a bad look all around. It also doesn't help that at the professional level that Adidas does not seem to account for all the technology the referee must wear on his arm when making the sizes and cuts. Everything just looks sloppier now. Hopefully the technological equipment gets smaller over time, but until it does it's going to be hard to have a clean look for most referees when they wear short sleeves.
I'm not opposed to change and staying current. But every two years seems to me to be change for change's sake more than change to stay current and sharp. Shrug. But so long as USSF doesn't try to match and stays with a 5-6 year cycle, it doesn't affect me.
Everything is driven by the World Cup and EUROs. If UEFA didn't want its own look for the EUROs, we might be on a 4-year cycle. But that's not going to happen.
how much money do they realistically make off of this though? we're talking a handful of officials who have the uniforms provided to them by ??? (league, federation, somebody) right? At that level the referees aren't buying their own uniforms, are they? And it's not like wannabe top level referees can use these uniforms if they choose to buy them since their own federation or league mandates something else. Or are there countries that require their referees to wear whatever junk adidas put out for the World Cup or Euros or CL? By the time they pay for designing and manufacturing these uniforms there can't be too much money left
This is a big part of your answer. I have a friend in Switzerland who officiates in their third and fourth divisions. Sure, the first division guys get the kits free (just like in MLS), but the levels below have to purchase their own kits to stay current. And those purchases have a trickle-down effect. Multiply that across a bunch of other countries that have Adidas at the top of their pyramids. I think Nike's strong push into the referee apparel world for the professional level has probably mitigated this phenomenon some and might be a key reason why Adidas isn't trying as hard and pushing as radical change and multiple alternatives as often as it did in the past.
Watching the VAR reviews in Orlando got me concerned about the placement of the monitors vis-a-vis the crowd. The monitor looked to be in the place of 3-4 seats in the first row, with fans surrounding it on three sides. And in a heated game, having the referee standing more or less in the midst of the crowd seems like a recipe for trouble.
Without ever explicitly saying it, the first week of MLSSoccer.com's Instant Replay does an excellent job showing that the "clear and obvious" standard for awarding a penalty is astronomically higher than the supposedly same standard for overturning a penalty call. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...s-pk-shout-valid-instant-replay?autoplay=true I can accept Geiger's decision to reverse his own penalty call--even if, as one of the commentators insists, there still can be an argument that it was a foul. I think most reasonable soccer observers and referees would say that's a challenge that is usually deemed fair if seen properly, so if he and the VAR want to say it was clearly and obviously wrong, that's fine. But how does one referee wipe off that penalty via VR while the Vela penalty appeal and the tackle on Ciani are not given? It is comical that, with the benefit of replay, those two penalties were not awarded (honestly, they should have both been given in real-time but, hey, things get missed and this is why we have VARs now... er, wait a second...). The VAR system isn't improving anything if it's just going to ignore penalties. And it's going to be particularly harmful when overturning "bad" penalty calls is easier and/or more likely than awarding clearly missed penalty decisions. Oh, and then you have the added layer of confusion where the handling decision in Orlando is given as a penalty via VAR; that one could certainly be deemed correct, but how is that handling clear and obvious when the two tackles weren't? We'll keep hearing from everyone who has a stake in this that there has been nothing but positive results and statistics will show 97% success rates. But when you take everything into account, it's still a mess. Geiger seemed to use VAR well and Bazakos did it appropriately (though very slowly) in two cases. That doesn't mean this is a success when the technology is not being used and applied the same way across the entire competition (nevermind from league to league).
I really don't understand how the Vela play wasn't called in real time. Really inexplicable. I can understand not getting the location right of the foul, but it's as clear as day a foul. On replay it seems pretty clear that it was in the penalty area. The defender himself was on the line when the foul was committed.