No, that's not my point. Not even close. My point is that if you do a VAR experiment for 2 years in one manner, and then you change it a couple weeks into the World Cup because you realize "oh crap, this is a problem," then something is wrong. It's not like the experiment honed everything to get to the point we are at now three months ago. It's a true bait and switch. Geiger's use of VAR at this World Cup has been night and day from the way it has been used in MLS. We're never going to agree on this so it's not worth debating again and again and again. But if VAR was actually ready for prime time, there'd be more than five referees in the world trusted with being a VAR on a knockout match and, well, they'd be trusted to actually make affirmative recommendations.
I'm not even sure the call is wrong. We only get the replay from the near side of the field, where it looks like the defender likely kept Kane onside. We are talking inches either way and an angle from the opposite side might show Kane visible and therefore, offside. It was close. Probably onside, but close. The idea that this is a "horrible call" is silly. Look at the Frank Anderson call in Germany-Korea. Most of us thought at first glance that the player was actually in an onside position. But VAR confirmed that Anderson got that part (the offside position) correct. The naked eye with one still frame is not as trustworthy as you make it out to be.
I'd suggest VAR is ready for prime time, but that it hasn't been used well in this tournament, frankly.
cant blame walker for needing a breather there... in a way that was a heroic header he made just after standing back up
I think you needed another four years to get more of the world accustomed to it and to get true worldwide standards of what "clearly wrong" and "clear and obvious" are. And you needed to train more referees. Personnel matters and only a few people have the experience--several of the specialists brought in to this tournament weren't trusted with being a VAR on a single match.
Can't? no. I think that there's something to be said for the notion that the standards have been muddied or changed. The world's best refs are able to largely execute as instructed, but if the instructions aren't clear or are a mess, you've got a garbage in, garbage out problem resulting in a mess.
But if you come up with a system to make three things better, and it only makes one thing better, is it worth it?