VAR in Review

Discussion in 'Referee' started by RedStar91, Nov 9, 2017.

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  1. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No. He's trying to score a goal and he actually makes some effort to bring the studs down in an attempt to not foul the goalkeeper and minimize the severity of any contact. He just can't avoid the contact.

    It's a foul, but a card serves no purpose. What behavior are we trying to modify here? Any rational striker would do the exact same thing 1000 times out of 1000. If he can do it without fouling, it's a goal. The problem here is that he didn't. That doesn't make it misconduct.
     
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  2. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    I agree with MR. This is a wholly expected play at high levels.

    I'll admit I'm less clear on how I would see the play in a youth game, where the player coming in has less control. Have to be there and see the actual play, I guess.
     
  3. BrianD

    BrianD Member

    Manchester United
    United States
    Jun 29, 2018
    My thought on the possible card was for the studs. He is trying to avoid stud contact, so he isn't being careless, but he does make contact...though not hard contact, which is why I was unsure.

    If no card, what do you have the foul for? Is it the foot, or the knee? With both players going for a 50/50 and the striker getting there first (barely), I could see a no-call. Would that non call be defensible?
     
  4. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well, apparently in Spain it's defensible because the VAR didn't opt to intervene.

    But are you sure the attacker got their first? Unfortunately the other tweet I posted has been deleted. But with two angles, it looked close to certain that Suarez kicked the arm of the goalkeeper first with any contact on the ball coming thereafter (and even then, it looked possible that the force of Suarez's kick caused the arm to strike the ball backward). This was the original reason why I posted this play, because multiple replays--I felt--made it clear and obvious this was a foul. I can understand how only one replay makes it a little fuzzier.

    To answer your question, Suarez carelessly kicked the goalkeeper and that's the foul. If Suarez had cleanly won the ball and then collided with the goalkeeper, that would be a much more interesting debate.
     
  5. sulfur

    sulfur Member+

    Oct 22, 2007
    Ontario, Canada
    #1: To be clear, my comment about the GK not having control was intended to be facetious (that's what the eye rolling emoji was for). Based on a few messages I got, I'm not entirely sure that was as clear as it needed to be. :)

    I found a compilation of all of the replays that were shown around the time of the goal (the two from the tweets were apparently shown post-game):

    https://streamable.com/q2vk8
     
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  6. BrianD

    BrianD Member

    Manchester United
    United States
    Jun 29, 2018
    Interesting. The multi-angle replay below your post did contain one angle that made it look pretty clear that Suarez got the keeper's arm first. That is the piece I was missing and the one which makes me agree to the foul. Had he not hit the arm and got ball first, I'd be thinking no foul. Then again, I've only got a couple of years with the whistle, so I'm still learning where to draw that line.
     
  7. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Rosetti has said AARs are "incompatible" with VAR. So that answers that question. Goodbye, AARs (in UCL... going to take longer in UEL, I imagine).

    He also said UEFA will use two VARs, not four like FIFA.
     
  8. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    @RedStar91 , this was not a red card after VAR review:



    To give credit to the referee, he admitted post-match he got it wrong and should have changed his decision (yellow) after the OFR. But this couldn't be a clearer example of a top level referee finding a way to not go SFP red despite the new technological tools.
     
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  9. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So here's one of the more interesting VAR incidents I've seen in a while. And it supports some earlier arguments that VAR can and will be used to disallow goals that no one wants or expects to be disallowed.

    https://streamable.com/jgcdp

    This goal was disallowed.

    A few things going on here...

    First, the whole thing reeks of NFL-like "did his second toe touch the line" minutiae. It's not a good look for the sport.

    Second, the review took about two minutes. If it takes two minutes to figure out if someone actually ran into the penalty area, perhaps the decision wasn't clearly wrong?

    Third, I'm not convinced this should have been subject to VAR. I have to go dive into the Handbook to be sure, but Fiorentina never loses possession of the ball while the violation occurs and one could make an argument that the violation was trifling (if the attacker had moved 3 inches further to the right instead of cutting through the penalty area, would it have changed what the defender did with the ball?). Then the goalkeeper surrenders possession on his own to a different attacking player. How did the Chievo player commit an infringement in the APP if his "infringement" occurred while Fiorentina had clear possession of the ball? Maybe there's an explicit exception I'm not thinking of, but I'm leaning toward this being an improper technical use of VAR--nevermind an unfortunate practical use.
     
  10. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    Yikes. I wonder though if the two minutes was not because it took long to determine there was a technical violation (that isn't hard to see), but because the R was asking himself "do I really have to $%$%ing do this?

    It's also interesting (at least to me) in the difference between real time and after the fact. If the R had immediately made the call as the ball was leaving the PA, it would have caused a bit of eye rolling for a nitpicky call, and nothing else. At the same time, I wonder if anyone on the pitch had even a glimmer of an idea what was being reviewed.
     
  11. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is a great point. And the reality is that almost no referee would ever make this call in real-time. So if VAR is supposed to be used for this, we're creating a world where technology is used for nit-picky calls to deny goals, but those same nit-picky calls will never get made if there is no goal. It's not good.

    I think back to the hypothetical of a VAR match where a substitute runs on the pitch to celebrate early prior to a goal being scored. People laughed when we talked about it and said VAR would never intervene. But if you read the Handbook carefully, there's absolutely no reason why VAR should not intervene.

    I still think the VAR in this match above was on tenuous grounds at best, because the incident did not occur during the goal-scoring team's APP. But the fact that a top-level VAR thinks he was right and a CR agreed means I might be wrong and, even if I'm not, it's a worrisome data point.
     
  12. Raul_Madrid

    Raul_Madrid Member+

    Feb 16, 2010
    Vancouver
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Hey refs,
    what do you think about this? was this a Pen? (Min 1:20 video below)



    upload_2019-1-28_9-58-7.png
     
  13. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    At least at the professional level, there has been a concept being taught about "taking a risk" by defenders. Where a defender slides in front of an attacker, the deliberate act of going into that slide is considered to make the defender responsible for the location of his arms. With that concept, where a sliding defender's arm takes away space from the attacker, the handling can be considered deliberate. (I thought the concept was applied more to the arm above the body than one behind the body, but I obviously don't get the briefings those folks do.)

    What is more intriguing from an officiating perspective, I think, is that it appears the VAR official and the referee have a very different view on this. VAR is only supposed to be sending down to the R for onfield review if the VAR believes there was a clear error that needs to be corrected. So the VAR apparently thought the PK should be reversed. (Though I suppose it is theoretically possible the VAR thought this should have been a send off for DOGSO handling, since the R comes out of the VAR pointing at the penalty mark, it seems unlikely that a send off was the basis for the review.) Assuming, as seems to be the case, that the VAR thought it was a clear error to give the PK, and even knowing that the R was convinced it was a PK, it goes to the lack of true clarity on where the line is on handling on certain types of plays--this is not a play where the video is ambiguous on what actually happened: the only question is philosophical on what constitutes "deliberate."
     
  14. fischietto

    fischietto Member

    Apr 13, 2018
    What's funny about this (Admittedly I don't know if it ended up impacting the final decision made by Chiffi (R) and Serra (VAR) ) is that this was a REPETITION of a GK.

    In the prior instance, a Chievo player ran through the corner of the penalty area to close down a pass, and Chiffi ordered the kick retaken. So, in some sense, the same thing "happened again".

    I truly believe this goes against the spirit of the game, and that this was a legitimate goal. I also buy MassRef's technical argument that this doesn't seem to be in the APP.
     
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  15. fischietto

    fischietto Member

    Apr 13, 2018
    In fact, he did! This incident happened at the RETAKING of the goal kick. From a technical point of view, don't think it should change anything though.
     
  16. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think this says more about the instructions that VARs get in Italy more than anything. My understanding is that in Italy there have been several incidents of VARs/referees overturning clear handballs awarded as penalties if they determine there was no intent and no way to avoid the handling. Everyplace else, if physical handling occurs and the referee awards a penalty, I don't think I've ever seen a VAR overturn the call because the threshold for "clearly wrong" is too high.

    There is an irony that the guy saying this should be overturned is Valeri, who was operating as a VAR instructor/coach the whole tournament. In effect, Beath didn't just need to make a different judgment than the VAR--he had to tell his VAR instructor he was wrong. We're definitely building the plane as we fly it.

    The big takeaway here, of course, is that two top referees--one from Italy and one from Australia--can look at the exact same handling incident with clear video of what transpired and come to two completely different conclusions. People need to remember this when they say fans or coaches or players are wrong when they complain about the handling/handball law. It absolutely does need clarification and/or changes from the IFAB. The only question is what changes can make things better, rather than worse.
     
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  17. fischietto

    fischietto Member

    Apr 13, 2018
    The current approach in Italy to handballs is as follows (and it clearly violates the protocol, but no one seems to bat an eye):

    Regardless of whether the on-field decision was handling OR not-handling, most any contact between a ball and a hand/arm is going to OFR.

    Rizzoli has made it clear, it is not even about a clear and obvious error, it's about "go look at this yourself and make a decision".
     
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  18. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    It will be interesting to see if there are formal changes to the protocol this year or if they are going to just let it evolve organically a bit in different places and see what turns out to work.

    The Italy approach definitely seems to lead to the path or re-refereeing from video--if we do that for handling, why not for other reviewable incidents?
     
  19. fischietto

    fischietto Member

    Apr 13, 2018
    I tend to agree, but on the other hand, they have staunchly NOT been re-refereeing body fouls for penalties. Very few VAR interventions for the referee either giving or not giving a penalty.

    It’s a fundamentally inconsistent approach that has been heavily criticized in the media.
     
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  20. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We did do it at the World Cup. And then you have the English approach where they want to do no OFRs, except for VC off-the-ball.

    It's evolving in too many different ways right now. The protocols and handbook are actually pretty clear, but it's an experiment so people are taking leeway and running with it (MLS even moved to the "OFRs for factual onside" approach post-WC).

    I think the IFAB should put its foot down, but I'm not sure how it does so when you have some top federations going in entirely different directions.
     
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  21. sulfur

    sulfur Member+

    Oct 22, 2007
    Ontario, Canada
    I think that a large part of this problem comes down to two different teachings about handling when sliding.

    Most of FIFA (CONCACAF and AFC at the minimum) teach as per the Esse handball video seminar that was released by the USSF a year or so ago.

    UEFA (as per their 2018:2 RAP DVD) has been teaching more along the lines of handball when it hits below the elbow (hand or forearm), and no handball if it hits above (bicep through shoulder) on a slide.

    This one appeared (to me) to hit the bicep, so UEFA VAR says "no handling", but AFC Referee says "handling"...
     
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  22. code1390

    code1390 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 25, 2007
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Great point. There's a big difference in handball teaching between FIFA (e.g. non-UEFA) and UEFA. It's pretty clear when you watch FIFA Futuro vs UEFA RAP.
     
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  23. persianfootball

    persianfootball Member+

    Aug 5, 2004
    outside your realm


    at 1:25, the so called hand ball offense occurs.

    my question is, why does the referee wait 3 seconds to call it? in those 3 seconds, he looks up/to his right to see where the ball landed. as soon as he sees that the ball is rolling towards an Iranian player as opposed to a japanese player, he then decides to blow the whistle. this is how refs act when giving "advantage." but how common is it to, instead of immediately blowing the whistle for a penalty in the box, wait 3 seconds to look for "advantage?" how can the attacking team get any more advantage than being awarded a penalty? i did not think that advantage applied to within-the-box penalty-offenses.
     
  24. It is a perfect good action. I've seen goals disallowed for a penalty, because the ref didnot wait to see if the advantage resulted in a goal. A scored goal always is better than a penalty.
     
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  25. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    Why would you not wait briefly to make sure there is not a certain goal? (And it was less than three seconds.)
     
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