my point was not that FIFA introduced VAR to screw the little teams. my point was that VAR or no VAR, the little guy gets screwed. so FIFA wouldnt care to fine tune VAR prior to the world cup because why not have an excuse that it was in the experimental stages and THAT is why the little guys had the calls against them, and not because it was deliberate. surely, you must have missed the part where the Iranian striker was fouled to the exact same extent as cronaldo was, yet there was not even a VAR review called for that. add to that the farce of not giving cronaldo a red, and you see why the ref felt like he had to give Iran that penalty. either way, it was a hand ball in the box and on a technicality it should have been a penalty, even if it was soft, because the player had is arm outstretched (think arm to ball as opposed to ball to arm rule), and that is just asking for trouble in the box.
especially when this player has displayed similar behaviour in the past and it is highly consistent with his personality and temperament.
For those of us who have been slackers in following the forum I’m curious what recommendations you’d have? I’m guessing lowering the bar for sending down a flag and allowing the CR ask for review? (I’m a little confused whether a CR can request a review? I’d imagine he can just ask, no?)
I don't see that being a solution either. The problem is this. Wherever you set the bar for VAR involvement, there will always be situations that are near that bar and people will argue that VAR should or should not have gotten involved. I think today showed that less involvement is better than more involvement. It can't be a surprise that the game that has led to the most VAR controversy is the one where we had three on field reviews and a soft (and in my opinion incorrect) PK awarded. Also, had the VAR decided to not get involved with the Ronaldo elbow, there would be less discussion than we now have once the VAR got involved and the ref only gave a yellow. Before today, the biggest debates have been about times VAR didn't get involved. And while moments like the Serbia or Sweden non-PKs caused discussions, people pretty much moved on the next day. But the one game where VAR probably got involved too much has instantly led to outrage. I don't know what MassRef will say, but I think the best solution is a high bar like we've had at the World Cup before Iran-Portugal mess. Lowering the bar will only lead to more issues.
Guys, I know we are discussing VAR and great debate going on, however, being a ref myself, i have a question regarding the CR elbow, would you give a red ? I have watched it 100 times and honestly in MY opinion, it was not enough to be red, I just dont think it was violent conduct.
I actually think not going to VAR on Iran's first 2 penalty shout outs, really hurt his credibility, after going to VAR for Ronaldo. IMO, going to VAR, even if you upheld your own decision, would have lessened the temperature. As it was, Iran was seeing double standard for major soccer power. I thought the guy was God awful.
He threw his jacket to the bench and the announcers thought he was sent off. But he wasn't and remained there through the end of the match.
I don’t think there’s any way Ronaldo should have been sent off. The Iran player, off the ball, steps in front of him and initiates contact — obstruction. Ronaldo reaches out and tries to pull him back to fight through the contact, and makes some contact with the head. To me, it’s both accidental AND negligible. And, not that this is technically relevant, but it would have been rewarding Iran for gamesmanship after attempting to start shit off the ball and making the whole thing seem worse than it ever was. I also wouldn’t have given the penalty for handball. First, the ball was headed from behind the defender who knew nothing about it. Second, it’s not even clear the ball hits the arm at all. I feel the referee caved to the pressure because the previous VAR decisions went against Iran.
That's why I prefer going the NFL/cricket route and giving teams a small number of VAR challenges. Then the onus is on teams to use their challenges judiciously.
Fire this guy immediately. He got easily swayed by the Iranian players and coaching staff and caved into making obscenely irrational decisions because of it.
I read the comments here and it becomes immediately clear why no system will ever give us perfect decisions! Bias is part of human nature and all humans are also affected by the circumstances which surround them. Give the officiating job to a robot if you want the calls to be technically right. From my angle, either we shouldn't have had VAR intervene to give Ronaldo the penalty he failed to convert, or alternatively VAR should have been used in 2 other incidents involving Iranian players in Portugal's box. In a fair world, both using VAR on Ronaldo's penalty and not using it when Azmoun in particular was pulled down had no merit. Once VAR is used and the infraction (foul) is clear, the right call is a penalty. Which is why the soft penalty for Ronaldo was nonetheless the right call. Not because the referee made an "obvious error" not calling it initially but because it was an obvious error when you do look at VAR and see clearly that there was a foul. The same, but with admittedly less clarity, applied to the handball. Not calling the handball a penalty wasn't obvious error in my book, but once the situation was reviewed by VAR, there was a handball that fit the criteria for a penalty even if barely and not as convincingly. Here, I do think the referee tried to make up a bit at the end for 2 calls he knew had been made against Iran for no valid reason: the decision not to call for VAR when Azmoun was pulled down in Portugal's box and the refusal to give Ronaldo his marching orders for his infraction which was somehow punished by a caution after VAR. On the latter point, Ronaldo's elbow was clear red card. I am not going to even argue about it because once you do, you make something that was clear suddenly become questionable!
On top of that, the NFL does not review pass interference or check to see if there might have been holding on a scoring play. They’ve tried to leave all of the subjective calls out of replay, aside for “the process of completing a catch” bit. Applying a subjective clear and obvious standard to reviewing fouls that are always subjective and traditionally arent consistent from game to game will never produce objective results.
Absolutely wrong. The referee was swayed by Portuguese big name and their constant players talking to him. CR should have been sent off and a PK should have been given to Iran sooner. The refereeing was below standard in this match
A very obvious point being missed in discussions on this game and on Irmatovs game... The problem here is not really VAR but pour referring. Two referees who are known for lack of control and an insanity to make match critical calls just did two games where they demonstrated poor control and an institution to make match critical calls. Not like people didn't see these coming when we saw the assignments. VAR simply isn't the solution to poor officiating... It wasn't designed to be.
Yeah, I'd like to follow up on this. Admittedly, I didn't watch the match, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from the sounds of it, you had a CR that, let's say, was very lenient and then had a VAR that, shall we say, wanted to keep control of the match. When these two styles of refereeing clash, don't you get these multiple reviews and craziness? It looks like the VAR sent down that last handball PK after a no-call on the field, correct? That seems crazy to me, but again, if you have a VAR trying to overcompensate for a CR that has lost a match, perhaps this is what you get.
I agree. Ronaldo is trying to get past an opponent who is clearly impeding. The contact came when he reached forward to get by. It’s not like he pulled the elbow back or swung it out of control. Reckless, yes but he did not use excessive force
No. I’d go completely in the opposite direction. Raising the bar and limiting the scope of review. The closest thing I’ve had to a “solution” is to limit reviews to two scenarios: 1) Review anything immediately before a goal that should or should not result in the goal being awarded. So any offside, clear handball or foul could deny a goal. Meanwhile a late flag that was wrong could be overturned. 2) Review serious and obvious red card misconduct off the ball. So unseen violence gets punished. Of course, this means penalties aren’t reviewed and tackles aren’t reviewed. With tackles, at this World Cup there would seemingly be no difference. But with penalties, it would mean some clear penalties don’t get awarded and some very soft penalties stand. So a lot of people wouldn’t like this limitation because it wouldn’t fix one of the bigger problems. However, given the inherent subjectivity with penalty decisions, I’d rather the occasional obvious penalty get missed than having referees re-referee every penalty incident. Also, given what we’ve seen with Ronaldo and a couple other incidents, FIFA referees are having a tough time agreeing on what is an obvious violent conduct red card. So even my second standard has problems.
While I largely agree with MR, once we narrow it to that, my question is whether it is worth lol of the cost, manpower, training, etc., for such a limited value. I know how I answer that question.
Well, yes. Now that we have GLT, I could stand with not having video review. But that train has likely left the station. For me, there are three incidents from the last several World Cups (including high-profile qualifying matches) that scream for video review. The first is the Lampard no-goal against Germany. GLT has solved that. The second is the Mexico-Argentina offside goal in 2010. VAR--whether the current incarnation or my more limited theory--would solve that problem so long as the whistle didn't go too quickly. And the third is Henry's "hand of frog." VAR--again, in either form--would solve that. Those are three grave injustices that no one--except for maybe the most partisan fans on the side benefiting--could accept. Those are objectively wrong decisions that affected the outcome of matches and had the added bonus of devastating the careers of the referees involved. For me, fixing objective and massive errors like that are what a video review system should be doing, which is why I preferred a limited system. No one would have been talking for years about the missed penalty in Iceland-Nigeria or the one in Denmark-Australia.
or Panama's "goal" that allowed them to qualify for this tournament. It seems to me that referees could help themselves by enforcing the laws. Players would adjust relatively quickly. But it's gotten to a point that players are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in the interest of allowing things to "flow".
While that sounds great in practice, I don't think any of the stakeholders involved would be happy or want a system that is essentially only used three times a decade. I know MLS and Don Garber certainly wouldn't be happy about a system that you can only use at most twice a year. Don Garber's whole argument for VAR in MLS isn't necessarily to get more decisions right. It's simply "well our fans are used to replay in other sports so that's why need to have it here." Mourinho has gone on saying that he would have more Champions League titles if VAR was in place so even if you really limit the scope, there would be people complaining about expanding the scope when it would be in its best interest.
Agree as well, I don't think it was excessive force to justify for the red. however, I put it as reckless which makes the yellow a correct call in my opinion. Would still love to hear from other refs and their point of view.