The VAR call was a joke. If he would have called foul in the run of play, I would have had no problem if it stood because it was a 50/50 call and you need 100% certainty to overturn a call. But once he let the goal happen, I don't think there is 100% evidence there to call it back. Like someone else pointed out, it was the defender who initiated the tangling. But the bigger problem I had is that Elfath didn't seem to take his time to view all the angles. It was clear that the sun glare was giving him problems on the screen, and he still didn't take his time to view the replays properly.
Elfath was poor all game. He let a great deal of physical play go on without calls. A DCU player got scissored down and while Elfath called a foul on Chicago, no card came out. A scissors tackle is at least a yellow and probably should be a red. My wife said Elfath was biased. I said he was just wildly inconsistent like all MLS refs. They have no intent, they are just incompetent.
Sadly, no one has the foresight to think out where you could place the var screen so it's visible. Fundamental. Reminds me of the ATM's on Gran Via in Madrid all facing the afternoon sun and unuseable. Poor refs are a synonym for MLS, I don't know if the league tries to make up for it by letting half the teams get to the playoffs, but a bad call can hurt, so staking your fortune on 3 blind mice isn't smart. Cutthroat finishing is smart and fortunately Rooney knows where the ball goes.
Is there any video of the VAR cal on this? I was at the game and didn't notice anything, but I was watching the ball. I watched MLS highlights on ESPN+ and the main website, but I can find no video of the incident.
It wasn't in the highlights but I think it was in the condensed game. (Bad calls are frequently ignored in the highlights.) As always, VAR is a ********ing abomination. In real life, it was a very iffy call; whenever you watch something in slow motion, it always looks way worse than it actually is. Especially when you're looking at it in the hopes of seeing something way worse than it actually is. Two refs can look at it and see two completely different things. At the end of the day, it was the exact same play as The Mother Of All Goals, which stood of course. I'd also like to give a shout out to ESPN for blacking out a game on ESPN+ that is being shown on ESPN. Dumb.
Or an NFL game. The clear bag policy is national and will be at all MLS and NFL stadiums next year, if they aren't already in place.
What I don't get is that this VAR call makes the complete non- call against NJRB when Brillant was hit in the head prior to their 3rd goal even more awful. How can you not have a mandatory VAR on a head blow against a central defender who goes down, leading to a goal, but you call this ticky tack crap on Acosta via VAR?
So, I can’t be a fan without going to the game? Thanks for setting me straight. I guess I’ll fill the @proner shaped void in my life with something more productive than reading your know-it-all comments. Good riddance to you, Jay!
There were plenty of retaliatory hits going on in the game. Some of them so much behind the play that neither the Ref nor the AR were aware of anything. I remember in the first half two DCU guys (Moreno and Segura) congratulating each other on clocking someone on the Fire who kept on kicking them from behind.
Chicago deserves some credit for making it difficult. They had a game plan similar to Philadelphia's: double-team Acosta and force him wide while staying very tight in the transition from the middle third to the final third. The main difference was that United was not tired and out of gas after going down a goal. As an aside, the East is a murderer's row this year with almost every team peaking towards the end. The only difference between the playoff teams and the non-playoff teams was consistency. You're now seeing non-playoff teams beat playoff teams and wild card teams beating Atlanta with some consistency. Meanwhile, the western teams are all taking turns losing at home with playoff points on the line. They're mostly weaker than the eastern teams.
So I just got home from a trip that kept me from attending the game, and just saw the goal called back. I'm not sure it meets the bar for something that's reviewable, given the how of it, nor did it represent a clear and obvious error. Especially since the Chicago player initiated contact and grabbing to slow up Acosta, and Acosta just plays through it. Acosta has no reason to hold back the defending player in that situation, while the defender has every reason to. But to take that up on the ref's forum here is such a pathetic waste of time.
Comically, they're talking about expectations vs. reality of VAR in other games from this week-end anyway. It's exactly the circle-jerk we would expect.
I'm starting to miss just plain old bad calls. It's so much more effort to complain about the referee, VAR AND DisCo.
Now you're getting it. The nature of refereeing in the real world is that some of it will always be subjective. You're just changing the subjectivity from the call itself to whether it should be reviewed AND how an incident looks on film as opposed to in real time. Acosta's foul is the perfect example. It looked like nothing in real time. On film, it looked very different.
To be fair, Arriola had to sit back more largely because of Raheem Edwards, who was giving United's defense fits for the first 50-60 minutes. Once DC equalized, the game opened up for Arriola.
Maybe the VAR official should be assisted by someone who isn't a PRO referee. After all, if you're going to review plays that the common fan is going to complain about later, you should have a common fan identify the calls. Any volunteers?