I see! Well, there goes one of my favorite predictions based on what has happened in several previous Olympics. Which is good in many ways if it means that the best referee is selected without undue favoritism. PH
There's no way, IMO, that this play meant the "clear and obvious error" standard. The VAR official was wrong to intervene. Beyond that, I've seen a number of PKs given in recent years--and games decided by those PKs--because a defending player /inadvertently/ kicks an opposing/attacking player in the box--even though the attacking player /doesn't have the ball/ and so is not in any position to create a goal-scoring opportunity. That's not how any match should be decided, IMO. One can call the kick "reckless," in that soccer letter-of-the-law way, but in the end it was an inadvertent, and if it doesn't /directly/ impede a player from trying to score or making a play that might lead to a shot/score/whatever, it just seems incredibly harsh to decide a match in that way. One could perhaps argue that had the kick not happened, maybe the attacking player could have gotten to the ball and made a play, and that is true, but then there is no way to know what might have happened; there are many possibilities. Award the attacking team a corner kick or something lesser than a PK (what else that might be, I've no idea), if you must, but don't let an accidental knock decide a big match. Lastly, if VAR officials were to start looking for possible fouls in the box not called by the ref, you'd be opening a massive can of worms. You can't do, I don't think.
Olympic Football Finals - Tokyo 2020 - Men Gold Medal Spain vs Brazil Referee: Christopher Beath (AUS) Assistant Referee 1: Anton Shchetinin (AUS) Assistant Referee 2: George Lakrindis (AUS) Fourth Official: Artur Dias (POR) Reserve Assistant Referee: Rui Barbosa (POR) Video Assistant Referee: Assistant Video Assistant Referee 1: Assistant Video Assistant Referee 2 :
Well, that’s one way for us to get it all wrong. I have heard Penso remains, so decent chance he’ll be involved in one of the medal matches, at least.
You have to wonder if the FIFA refereeing committee intentionally makes assignments to trick us all... Women's Bronze: CONMEBOL (R), UEFA (4th) Women's Gold: UEFA (R), CAF (4th) Men's Bronze: CAF (R), OFC (4th) Men's Gold: AFC (R), UEFA (4th) Nice confederational spread, but one confederation is missing.
Rather shocked VAR didn’t award* the PK after review. Looks like defender uses arm to push the ball past the defender. https://streamable.com/xu74wo *edit: and yes, I know VAR doesn’t award anything.
Penso is AVAR2 on both Gold Medal matches. I'm ecstatic for him. To be involved in two Gold Medal matches is, surely, unprecedented. And he was picked out of the American contingent to stay behind and deliberately do this, which is also something. It has to be a great signal for his as an international VMO. I do wonder what his role is, though, given only two VMOs have been used thus far. It feels like is would be akin to the AVAR3 reserve/support role at the World Cup and EUROs. Steinhaus-Webb is main VAR on the women's match, which is expected. Al-Marri is main VAR on the men's match, which surprises and worries me. He's the VAR who sent down the alleged SFP that baffled all of us several pages back. I'll simply note that he got the Gold Medal match and the referee for that game, who rejected his recommendation, never worked again. That's an odd sign for me. Maybe politics trumped everything here, but FIFA has been very careful about who gets the main VAR spot on big matches so far, so it's a worrying signal.
Women's Final - Sweden vs Canada: 8:00AM ET Friday, August 6th US TV: TBD (Likely USA network) Ref: Anastasia PUSTOVOITOVA (RUS) AR1: Ekaterina KUROCHKINA (RUS) AR2: Sanja RODAK (CRO) 4th: Salima MUKANSANGA (RWA) RAR: Kyong Min KIM (KOR) VAR: Bibiana STEINHAUS-WEBB (GER) AVAR: Marco GUIDA (ITA) AVAR2: Chris PENSO (USA)
It is undoubtedly fantastic for Penso, but "unprecedented" can't mean much when VAR wasn't even in use at previous Olympics. No one was going to be on the pitch for both Gold Medal matches.
Well, sure. But I also meant two Gold Medal matches ever. Maybe I shouldn't have used "surely," though. There could be something quirky from the past. And the introduction of VARs (and AARs and Reserve ARs before them) has led to a lot of "unprecedented" things. As some of this stuff becomes more normalized (obviously not AARs) and the pool of talent gets bigger, it's going to be less likely that things like this happen. So even though this is new, I think it's also pretty likely that it won't be repeated in the future.
Steinhaus(-Webb) was in the center for the Gold Medal match in 2012, and is VAR for the Gold Medal match this year.
It's not some grave injustice/conspiracy that CONCACAF is missing from the on field officials for the medal matches. You have a CONCACAF team on both the Bronze and Gold medal match on the women's side (USA and Canada). You also have a CONCACAF team on the Bronze medal match on the Men's side (Mexico). Sure you could have thrown Elfath as a 4th on the Final or on the Bronze match or put a CONCACAF official as a 4th on one of the women's matches.
Yes, options are more limited, but not impossible as you noted. I was also not suggesting grave injustice/conspiracy.
I was searching field hockey. The ref was wearing a GoPro. That would be awesome to see exactly what the referee saw during a match.
I believe Kris Griffiths-Jones is the main VAR in Australia (he seems to be VAR for most, if not all, of the A-League matches I watch). This goes back to MassRef's comment from a few pages back.
It isn't really showing that. GoPro has a wider angle of view / focal length. Also, the go pro lens is fixed in place unlike the eyes.
It could be a useful tool for sure, I'm just saying it is important to be careful to say that it shows what the ref likely saw vs. What they ACTUALLY saw. Not to mention that cameras like this don't perceive vision in the way that humans do with our constant saccades and macular/foveal perceptions... Anyway, all this to say that video tools like this are great to supplement the view of the ref and do VAR work, but if that tech will be used to say "boy, the ref was looking right at it and still got it wrong" would be unfair to the official.