Being at his side isn't a license to use the arm. He is jumping into the path of the ball, not struck by a ball he can't avoid. And he moves the arm slightly toward the ball as it approaches. I think it was a good call. EDIT: Adding an afterthought: There is a myth out there that if the arm is pinned to the body it is OK to use the outside of the arm on the ball. (I almost had to toss a coach over that myth last year.) It is never ok to deliberately use the arm to contact the ball. (Positioning the arm for protection in a wall or instinctively protecting oneself is not considered deliberate.)
It might help me to have a replay of him moving or not moving as the ball approaches rather than a replay tracking the ball where you can't see the player until the ball gets to him.
Few more incidents from this morning. First, in the France-Vietnam game, this penalty was awarded in the 6th minute: I think most would probably classify this as "soft." That said, there is an arm on the attacker before he goes to ground and that's enough for the VAR to justify the call or at least not to deem it a "clear and obvious error." In this regard, the system works as it should based on the protocols (whether it meets the soccer viewing public's expectations for replay is a different question). The fouling player got cautioned, which seems unnecessary to me, but is important. Later in the match the same player is sent off for a 2CT below. Seems like the 4th official caught this one. Regardless, I'm raising this incident because it certainly looks and feels like VC. I wonder two things--first, if the VAR would have intervened for VC if this wasn't caught and if the VAR has an obligation to request a review to change a 2CT to VC. That second question may seem weird, but it has huge ramifications for suspensions in a tournament setting. Then this happened in the Honduras-New Zealand match, which I don't understand based solely on the highlights. Go to to 1:14: The referee awards a penalty for what looks like an off-the-ball grab of the neck. He sends off #3. But he seems hesitant about it, to say the least. It appears the incident is then reviewed and the penalty stood but the red was downgraded to a yellow. Having not watched the game live, I have no idea if the CR went to review this himself in an OFR or if he just took advice from the VAR. I wish the highlight package showed a couple more angles. Also wish the referee had just waited to whistle and allowed the goal, but that's another matter.
So on the New Zealand situation, looks like the referee just pulled the wrong card and corrected his own error: VAR then was checked to make sure not a clear and obvious error. To be fair, I think it's a great spot to call this foul. His problem is not waiting for the goal to be scored and then sowing confusion by accidentally pulling the wrong card.
Costa Rica : Zambia - CONGER (NZL) VAR: ORSATO (ITA), AVAR: SATO (JPN) Portugal : Iran - ZAMBRANO (ECU) VAR: VIGLIANO (ARG), AVAR: VARGAS (BOL) Uruguay : South Africa - KARASEV (RUS) VAR: MOEN (NOR), AVAR: COLLUM (SCO) Japan : Italy - GRISHA (EGY) VAR: ABID CHARIF (ALG), AVAR: DIEDHIOU (SEN)
Lopez used an OFR to confirm the penalty award he made here, at 0:31: I'm not sure why. The VAR system can't become a reflexive crutch. There's barely a need for the VAR to seriously review this and there's definitely no need for the CR to do an OFR and waste time. VAR was also consulted and an OFR was undertaken in the Korea Republic-England game. About two minutes were taken for Ramos to re-watch a potential elbow. Ultimately, he chose to give no card at all.
1. What does OFR mean? 2. Costa Rica beat Zambia 1-0. FIFA says Zambia had a late equalizer taken away by VAR. What happened?
So today was a big morning for VAR. First team ever denied progression at a FIFA tournament due to VAR intervention and, quite frankly, I would argue the first big mistake rectified. Zambia : Costa Rica game highlights here: If you watch the whole thing, you'll see two penalties were awarded and, at 0:38, you'll see a DFK was given for a foul as the attacker approached the penalty area. All three incidents were spot checked by VAR and either confirmed or classified as not clear and obvious errors. The big call was the offside goal at the end, though. Eventual goalscorer is about 2 yards offside. VAR catches it and annuls the goal. So this is the type of mistake VAR truly is for. Only problem is it took a long time. No timestamps on the FIFA highlights, but the teams were in position ready to kickoff before Conger signaled for the VAR--this sort of thing has to get smoother. Then, in the same group but other game, VAR used to overturn a penalty for handling that the referee awarded at 0:54 in this link: Also a case of this probably working well. I imagine Zambrano thought the ball caught the outstreched left arm of the defender, rather than the tucked in right elbow. A subjective call to an extent, as ever penalty ultimately is, but pretty close to objectively wrong so good to get this overturned.
I'm about to watch USA vs. Saudi Arabia, and I see that one of the VARs is from Argentina, who has a rooting interest for the USA. I'm not saying he was biased, but when there's a tournament where some third place teams advance then not letting referees do any games in groups their country is in is not sufficient to avoid possible conflicts of interest. Did every Group Stage game have its referees decided before the U-20 World Cup started?
That was not an eight yellow card first half. I think the center ref confused his yellow card for his whistle.
What was the restart after the penalty call was reversed? Looked like he was pointing for a free kick somehow?
I'm way behind on this tournament now, so a couple quick notes: 1) Since we're really not discussing the assignments in detail, I'll forgo posting them here now other than the CR knockout stage ones. 2) For the knockout stages, there are 3 VARs. VAR1 is the "lead" VAR. VAR2 is now a specialist AR to help with offside decisions. And VAR3 is the "AVAR" that we've had throughout the tournament. It is interesting to see that some VARs have been only in the VAR1 role while some have been only in the VAR3 role. Judging by the assignments, my best guess is that those in the VAR1 role are actually being considered to go to Russia next year as VARs only (so guys like Orsato, Zwayer and Makkelie). The AVARs are people who are likely--or still have a chance--of going to Russia as on-field referees. 3) Haro, the Peruvian referee who had US-Saudi Arabia, was poor. He didn't do well in either match and I don't think we need to worry about seeing him next year. Every South American country has a World Cup candidate, but it seems like Peru is one of the weaker links overall as it hasn't sent a referee to the World Cup since 1998. 3b) The 2CT given to the US player in the last match is interesting, primarily because it's not reviewable. However, if Haro had given a straight red for VC, he could have reviewed it (and hopefully seen that it was not a red and really not a yellow either, so then could have avoided the send off). The VAR system is going to create some really unfair situations when similar plays happen in the same match but only one of them can be reviewed and fixed. I think that's one of the disaster scenarios that is absolutely going to happen, it's just going to be a matter of time. 4) VAR was used to correctly annul a goal in the Senegal-Ecuador match, at 0:47 here:
Round of 16 Assignments Venezuela : Japan - KUIPERS (NED) Korea Republic : Portugal - CUNHA (URU) Uruguay : Saudi Arabia - SIKAWE (ZAM) England : Costa Rica - BASCUNAN (CHI) Zambia : Germany - AGUILAR (SLV) Mexico : Senegal - CAKIR (TUR) France : Italy - MARCINIAK (POL) United States : New Zealand - AL-JASSIM (QAT) Interesting that confederational neutrality holds, yet the US-New Zealand and Uruguay-Saudi Arabia matches could have UEFA referees but do not. Not sure if that's a signal that Sikawe and Al-Jassim are already highly though of, if they need to be tested further, or if it's something to do with resting Eriksson/Kassai/Mateu Lahoz for the QFs and beyond.
That's one of those that I'd really want to allow as it was such a clean hit on the ball. But you can't encourage players going for those type of balls as you'd end up with more broken fingers than goals so it has to be called as a foul.
I assume you're not suggesting there is anything subjective about that call. It has to be called because the LOTG specify the GK cannot be challenged when in control of the ball with his hands.
As a former GK, all I can say is you've got to be %$%#$ kidding!!! You want to allow a ball to be kicked out of the GK's hands?!?!?! But just so it is overly clear to anyone reading, as Thezzaruz notes in a further post, this is not a close question. Attackers may never kick the ball out of the keeper's hands, regardless of whether they only kick the ball.
England v Costa Rica: VAR used to confirm an offside decision (obstructing line of vision) at 0:29. VAR also confirmed a handling penalty decision at 1:28.
France-Italy, a situation where no call was made but the spot-check clearly occurred (and you can see French players signalling for the VAR; though they aren't supposed to): https://streamable.com/rbp5t Decision from the VAR, without CR consultation, that not calling deliberate handling was not a clear and obvious error, so no penalty was awarded. Whole thing took about 35 seconds, so worked well in this situation with no real excessive delay.
The VAR signal will inevitably be used by players and coaches as it becomes more commonplace in the game. The stakes and pressure will just be too high. I know as soon as Ronaldo has a goal disallowed for offside, he'll do it just like he vags his finger right now at the AR for being offside. Same thing with Sergio Ramos. As soon as he gives away another idiotic penalty or gets sent off, he'll start making the signal. Wonder if the referees and leagues/federations will do anything about it. UEFA tried something similar when it came to imaginary cards being brandished by players and coaches, but it became a lost cause. I think the referees were either instructed or told to caution players for producing imaginary cards, but it never really gained any foothold. Some referees did and others didn't and I think they just kind of let it go and it's become just part of the game. Sergio Ramos and Gabi practically spent the entire first half of the 2nd leg of the Atletico and Real CL semifinal brandishing cards, but Cakir did really nothing about it. I really hope that it becomes a mandatory caution for doing the TV signal and that referees go through with it and issue them. Hopefully, they can stamp it out of the game. Otherwise, it's gonna trickle down to the lower levels (i.e. non-VAR levels). Can you imagine on your local men's league game, some bozo doing the VAR signal?
It already is a mandatory caution, per principle 8 of the protocols: http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/216/VAR_Protocol Summary_v1.0.pdf Alas, this is not the first time we've seen the signal, but we haven't seen a caution yet. Now is the time to nip this in the bud, before it becomes commonplace. As I've argued before, the introduction of VAR is a huge opportunity to seriously clamp down on dissent in general. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see that opportunity seized and I have very high doubts that we'll see mandatory cautions for making the signal. What we allow, we encourage.
I'm still missing the "touch the ball - yellow card" experiment from the 2003 U-17s. I thought it was fantastic. They watered it down for the 2003 U-20s, then quickly buried it. Yeah, there were some unfortunate second yellow's and accumulation suspensions early in the 2003 U-17s, but by the end of the tournament the players had adjusted.