Copa America 2021 Referee Discussion [Rs]

No. A red card could have still been given due to the nature of the tackle. But a penalty could never have been given there. Or here. And a card was never part of the equation here.

 

Well, at least he got the red card right, I suppose.

 

27’ penalty shout was interesting.

At least partially related, what might it take for Suarez to get a dissent caution. Personal, public and persistent. He has all his bases covered. At this point, Sampaio looks more weak than judicious by ignoring it.

 

Valenzuela has a very convincing "no, I'm not giving a yellow card for that even though it's probably a yellow card" mannerism.

This Argentina-Paraguay match feels particularly physical.

And now there's an interesting offside call to annul a goal at the end of the first half. Waiting on the VAR check.. There is a lot going on with this one.

 

There will be video eventually, but essentially there's a shot from about 23 yards where Messi appears to be in an offside position. Shot goes by him as he gets out of the way, so the first possibility was that he is interfering with GK line of vision.

But that shot gets saved, ball gets recycled to left side, and then Messi is again in something close to an offside position (but seemingly clearly onside unless the camera is very deceptive) as he lunges for a cross and misses. The ball then strikes a defender and the ball goes in the net for an own goal. If Messi was in an OSP, it would have been offside for interfering with an opponent by attempting to play the ball.

Pretty confident the latter one was not an OSP, so it had to be the first one. If it was upheld, offside position must have been present. That only leaves the subjective question of whether or not he interfered with the GK.

 

FOX addresses it at the start of the second half and shows the necessary angles. It ends up being a great call. Position was there and he was obstructing the vision. Really good offside decision when all is said and done.

 

57' is the type of situation that is a foul on the defender literally anywhere else on the field but, because it's the goalkeeper in the penalty area the foul is called on the attacker.

 

Pitana has a big problem here. But I don’t know how he gets out of it.

 

Pitana went to whistle, too, which significantly adds to the optics in a bad way.

 

Machnik is useless in this situation, by the way. Like, totally.

That said, I have no idea how they can let this goal stand given everything that has happened here.

 

Let’s put it this way. If that DOGSO red card overturned a couple weeks ago in USL was correctly annulled (or had the suspension lifted, rather) then there’s no way this goal should stand. Brazil started its promising attack right from the rebound.

 

Pitana has lost control here. Pretty sure he didn’t whistle for a ceremonial restart after the Neymar yellow, which led to an attacking chance. Then a red card to a technical staff member. And of course all sorts or protests in the last 10 minutes.

 

To be fair, Pitana just should have followed his instinct and blown his whistle. He then visually played "advanatage," which isn't even technically correct (and sort of completely undermines the argument to not stop play!). It just looked so bad and then directly led to the goal.

With that said, I can't decide, once the goal is scored, whether figuring out an exit strategy with the VAR is a better choice than just owning the bad decision. On the one hand, there is credibility in calling the goal off "with help." On the other, do you really need other people to help decide if you interfered with play? It's just a bad, bad, bad situation.

In other news, not sure Neymar wants to stay on the field but also not sure Pitana has any desire to send him off.