Pretty famous football personality in Wales and North America. Google him. Your post above jogged my memory. I bet Sam remembers him.
If you allow unlimited challenges, that could create a situation where every tackle, every touchline violation, every offside, virtually every play that involved players from opposing sides, to be reviewed. if challenges are limited, one must be judicious in their application.
I'm not making an analogy involving another sport. You know that as well as I do. Sam said that VAR doesn't work "anywhere". That's false, Ken, and not only that, it's silly.
No. Because while there are a number of things I personally am willing to put up with in order to see the game called as correctly as possible, policing and/or reviewing every single corner kick EVER TAKEN is definitely not one of them. I've tried to make that clear, as I think some amount of physicality is part of the game on corners. But when a VAR official views a crystal clear close-up of a ball floating past an attacker who was tugged down by his shirt, and the only thing preventing a scoring opportunity was the foul -- which is pretty much exactly what happened to Salah against WBA -- then yeah that's a situation in which VAR makes sense. It's a close up in HD that the ref cannot possibly see, especially if the incident occurred on the other side of a crowd of bodies. It's precisely those situations, which frankly I don't think happen all that often but happen enough to warrant the implementation of this tech, that is what VAR is designed for. You could say the same thing about offside calls, which is another example in WBA-LIV in which VAR was used correctly... it was a close call that a ref cannot judge through a mess of bodies, and only because of VAR were we able to correctly rule that the goal against LFC should not have counted. That doesn't mean you need VAR and the ref trotting over to the video booth for every single offside call, does it? No! Just the ones in which an egregious error was made by the ref not spotting something which has impacted the scoreline. Simple.
Which applies to literally any endeavour undertaken by humans. Yup. Don't mean to be rude, but that's really not that good. That makes you a very average recreational golfer. What a load of bollocks. All the guys I know who are low single digit handicaps are good, multi-sport athletes.
I took up golf when I was in my early 40s. I started out as a 16 handicap and eventually pared it down to a 6. I played at least once a week during the time of year where that was feasible. I shot 84 at St. Andrews and would have done better if I knew the pin yardages. Shooting an occasional par means that you can break 100 with relative consistency. Breaking 80 with relative consistency means that you can play golf with anyone and anywhere and not make their day miserable.
I get the impression that some folks think that the rules of football are sacrosanct. Nonsense. Every sport has rules changes. Some advance the sport and some are epic fails in the minds of detractors. I hate the DH in the American League, but I am probably in the minority.
being concerned about VAR - for extremely valid reasons - doesn't mean you think the rules are sacrosanct. over the years I've seen god knows how many rule changes and agreed with all of them (exception of yellow for taking shit off, of course) until this crap reared its head.
here's a case in point in the VAR debate, in the WH vs MC game going on right now. Sterling just got tackled and went down in the box. all the comms said "stone cold pen" but the ref and the linesman - both of whom had good clear views - gave a foul against Sterling. sooooo ,,,, if those two game officials were the ones in the VAR booth for this game they would have contacted the ref and told him "no pen''. but it was a pen, no doubt whatsoever. so much for the VAR clarity many are talking about.
because, when it comes to football, you are the ultimate authority, apparently. look...there is no such thing as a perfect system, but using technology to improve the chances of not making game-changing mistakes is a good thing.
ah - now you're catching on !!! wake me up when they've figured out how to do that without the nonsense VAR is creating at the moment. (BTW watch the play and tell me it WASN'T a pen.)
Assume you mean "if those two game officials were the ones in the VAR booth for this game they would have contacted the ref and told him "pen''" Assume VAR is only used if: a. The ref is not sure; or b. One team uses their challenge. It seems the ref was sure of his call? So it would only go to VAR if one team challenged the call. If it doesn't go to VAR, the ref's call is final. If it goes to VAR, the VAR call is final. Simple. "there is no such thing as a perfect system, but using technology to improve the chances of not making game-changing mistakes is a good thing" This is correct.
no, that's not what I meant. I'm talking about the 2 game officials. they both saw the incident clearly and neither called it a pen. they obviously didn't think it was a foul, so if they saw it on tv why would they think differently? The only way it will work is if the ref is the ONLY one who decides to consult VAR. Screw what someone watching a tv screen tells the ref to do, or giving teams the right to demand a review. Yes, it CAN be simple, but only if ppl drop all these "add on" ideas they keep coming up with.
Not really Sam - the point is that they are "blessed" with a better view up there in the VAR booth. While we are "blessed" with the waiting to adjust our retinal-outcome....
Oh - I agree --- Just don't know any way of pre-defining those moments as only (or largely) the ones that actually matter....
No offence taken. I can't imagine any reality or alternative reality where I would be likely to be offended by a reference to Golf..... I will however agree that my idea of "good" isn't really "all that" good. However, I would say that the fellow playing average good soccer in the local league is as far removed from really good soccer as is the occasional par recreational golfer from the creme-de-la-creme of golf.... I still don't buy your argument that Ian Woosnam and John Daly playing in a different era before golf evolved to its more modern variant makes it any more or less of a sport then. And I stand over the theory that Ian Woosnam is by no stretch of the imagination a sportsman. In fact, I have a theory that golf is as much a game in the head as it is a game in the practising ....maybe it is his back, but I reckon that there's no physical reason that Tiger Woods couldn't be at his previous levels - Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman were doing it at his age ...
It's in the rules as they already exist... hence my confusion/frustration, because I've been saying that for days now.
For me, that's the key point. I believe VAR has the potential to improve things. It's just a matter of a little thought and experimentation to find what works best.
The point is that, if you are judging a sport on "fitness levels", the "era" does matter very much to any sport. The average level of fitness/strength etc of a professional athlete in any sport is very significantly higher now than it was 30 years ago. So to judge golf (now) based on your perception of the fitness of Woosnan/Daly (then) is not exactly fair.