I could care less what the final score was. He let France go ahead twice with phantom goals, and tipped the match in their favor, when they hadn't even had a shot. And being a team that has destroyed their opponents on the counter, that eventually led to the other goals. Anyone that watches soccer knows it would be a completely different game if the scores were level or Croatia were rightfully ahead.
It wasn't a foul. But Croatia defended the FK poorly and scored an own goal. That's not on the ref. The other was a clear PK. Very far from two phantom goals.
And herein lies the issue. Its a judgement call on just how far away the arm can be before its considered making his body bigger.
It's completely on the ref. Griezmann knew exactly what he was doing, going to the spot where France had recently scored a header, and Croatia had snow weakness getting scored on from. He took a dive, and the ref bought it. I repeat, Croatia were in complete control of the game and France had no shots. The ref changed the match entirely. Clear PK? what are you smoking?
Seems most of the TV opinion and even ex refs are criticizing use of var and pitana there. Handball rule, var or no var needs more consistent interpretation.BUT that was a soft penalty to overturn using var. Got to say Croatia took it well. Any other more sulking team and Pitana would have lost control there and then.
Then why use the word “serious” if, in your opinion, any missed foul that could be a PK is reviewable? That makes no sense. They didn’t want everything reviewable. So they went with “clear and obvious” fouls and missed incidents deemed “serious”. Not all missed incidents, only serious ones. They give use a clue later “The only exception is for direct red cards offences involving violent conduct, spitting, biting and extremely offensive, insulting or abusive gestures which can be dealt with at any time as they are so serious”. VC and SFP are “serious”. There is no provision to review missed run of the mill fouls. They didn’t want VAR to interfere that much. You can keep insulting me if it helps, but you’re the one not reading the wording. “It doesnt say “missed fouls”. It says “serious missed incidents” and then goes on to describe what they consider “serious”. FIFA never intended for missed run of the mill fouls to be reviewed. They didn’t want that much intervention.
I like how people calling for clearer guidelines on "deliberate" or "diving" or "Clear and Obvious" think that will reduce the amount of judgement, experience and expertise needed to referee soccer. Any definitions, guidelines and directives issued in virtually any field require interpretation and application by the end users. Thinking that these types of controversy can be defined-away is naive and unrealistic.
True. But the law could be rewritten/updated to give greater clarification of what the operating definition of "deliberate" should be. For example: Does reaction time matter? It should, since it is impossible to deliberately do anything you don't have time to consciously react to. Currently, the IFAB instructions appear to be that reaction time is irrelevant. Is ball to hand a infringement? According to the laws, it should not be. But a majority of the handball calls made these days are cases where it is ball to hand, not hand to ball. Does arm/hand position matter? What is an "unnatural" hand/arm position, and should it matter? Having the hand/arm away from the torso and/or in a "unnatural" position are both currently used by the IFAB as an indicator of deliberate intent (which in most cases they are not), but nothing about hand/arm position appears in the LOTG. When people are running/jumping/twisting/moving, their arms are usually extended from their torso, but they are clearly not "deliberately" intending to handle the ball.
If you want to see what happens when you try to over-define a rule, look at the catch rule in the NFL during the past decade. It got more complex year after year in an attempt to cover everything. What ended up being the solution? To simplify it.
According to the current IFAB interpretation of "deliberate", any time a defender's hand/arms are extended away from the torso, he is deliberately intending to handle the ball. Nonsensical, IMHO, but that's the way the IFAB is currently interpreting the law and instructing referees. So by the IFAB standards, that's about as clear a handball as there is.
The first goal also shows a problem with VAR. They can review a foul that wasn’t called in the build up, but if a play that wasn’t a foul is called in the build up,it can’t be reviewed. That’s a fault with the system. Mass, pointed out that in the 3rd place game, had Belgium scored, it would have been reviewed because of a foul in the build up. But you can’t review a bad call that builds up to a goal? Something is inherently unfair there.
I have said this many times before. A penalty (spot kick) is a severe sanction. The LOTG should give intermediate sanctions for many infractions in the box which don't justify a spot kick but shouldn't be ignored either. Someone didn't like my idea of giving indirect free kicks. Okay: give a direct freekick from the edge of the box for these kind of infractions, limiting spot kicks for infractions which are preventing a clear goal scoring chance. Also, I believe there should be an intermediate card between yellow and red. An orange card when red is too harsh and yellow not meaningful enough. The orange card getting a player ejected for 10 minutes before he can come into the game again (if enough time is left for him to come into the game). But without an automatic suspension from future games either.
Would have to change a fundamental concept in the law regarding changing a decision after play has been restarted. If you do not do that, then you'll have to be looking at every possible foul for errors... Would slow it too much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the laws of the game specifically say that the position of the hand doesn't indicate whether it is a handball? I could care less what people assume as an interpretation. It is not a handball in any way shape or form based on the laws. And to add to that, the ref clearly wasn't sure about it, meaning it wasn't a clear and obvious error that needed overturning to begin with. To add to the above, it is still a phantom goal regardless of the "interpretation"
The ONLY thing the laws say is that the contact with the hand/arm must be "deliberate". Everything else is the IFAB trying to determine a working definition of "deliberate" (and doing rather poorly at it IMHO).
Not only did he take a long time reviewing, but he left and then went back. How is something that you have to double check, “clear and obvious”?
I just don't see how you can ever write a law that will make something like handling a totally objective decision. The best example is (as mentioned previously) the NFL catch rule. The NFL has tried for years to take the subjectivity out of the rule, yet it became more controversial than ever. Same thing with the strike zone in baseball. It's clearly defined in the rule book, and there are tech tools to help make it more consistent. However, every umpire will see the defined strike zone just a little differently. What we are asking is to make a very subjective decision as clearly defined at the baseball catch rule (if the ball hits the ground before the fielder catches it, the batter is not out). That's going to be really tough to do.
Check out the thread in the Refereeing Forum I have started to discuss changes like this: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/do-the-laws-of-the-game-needed-to-be-updated.2085047/#post-36892857
If we’re having a legitimate debate amongst reasonable people on whether the incident was handling, it is clear and obvious to me this is something VAR should completely stay away from no matter the circumstances.
Agree! One question: I know there were some earlier posts about whether or not Pogba was offside on the first goal. Given that it was ruled an own-goal by Mandzukic, wouldn't the offside not matter (and that's assuming he was offside--I think the screencap indicated he was not offside)? Or would he be considered in the play given that he was in the scrum? As to using the VAR on France's second goal, it's like a Rorshach test for where people are on FIFA's use of the VAR in this World Cup. If you're willing to accept the lack of consistency in its application throughout the tournament (especially since the knockout games started), then you probably think it was the right decision to use it and resulted in correcting a missed hand-to-ball in the PA. If you found the lack of consistency frustrating, then this serves as a perfect example of an unnecessary (and possibly incorrect) intervention. To me, if it was so "clear and obvious," why did it take Pitana so long to make the decision? I understand he wanted to get it right, but the VAR was used to make a call that's made what percentage in real time? 50-50? 60-40? Anyway, like @Orange14, I always enjoy this forum during the World Cup. Thanks @MassRef and others for your comments and insight. See you in four years!