Another way of looking at it: he took a calculated risk. It didn't pay off. Then weighed the options of rejecting a Qatari VARs opinion or going with it.
Good. Uruguay delayed the taking to the PK to the point of embarrassment. I'm glad he didn't extend time, that bullshit shouldn't be rewarded.
Q: How many Portuguese players does it take to protect the penalty mark? A: It depends on how many Uruguayan players are trying to scuff it.
I can actually see the argument for this being a punishable handball. But I have to watch it again and again and again to get there and to only focus on one clip. And even then, I waffle. So ultimately I land at just this not being a good VAR intervention. And I don't think blame can only fall on the VAR. Faghani has to bear responsibility for accepting the recommendation, too. Here are my thoughts, which are a little scattered: 1) The image send down was the most damning (more on that in a second). And it was shown as a still and then a slo-mo. This is fine when the VAR is essentially a prosecutor trying to prove his case. Like when the question of contact or no contact exists. But this is a subjective call about the illegality of a handball. Everyone knows the handball occurred. Al Marri is wrong, in my opinion, in the sense that he found the one piece of evidence that could prove his case and he ran with it. That's not his job. And then Faghani is negligent in not insisting on more angles to get a better understanding. I know Faghani works A-League, so maybe this criticism is misplaced, but you see this sort of thing all the time with referees who aren't as good at VAR (cough, EPL). They don't direct the VAR. They don't understand they are in charge and can call the shots. Or they don't think they are supposed to. In short, they don't Kevin Stott it. No way Kevin Stott is calling this without 2-3 other angles. And a World Cup Final referee shouldn't be doing so either. 2) The angle is damning because of the open palm and the way the body is turned. The well-cited slide above is about a supporting arm being justified. It's justified because it's a natural position, which means everything is good so long as the handball isn't clearly intentional. Well the problem with the image Faghani saw is that it starts with an open palm on the ball. So, immediately, antennae are up for "intentional." It could be a coincidence, but it's a pretty big one when an open palm just happens to stop a ball after you get nutmegged. The second way this image is damning is that, for me, when I look at things from that angle the positioning of the arm doesn't look natural for the challenge/tackle. He's trying to challenge a player immediately in front of him and he twists his body completely so his arm ends up literally behind him in support? I'm sorry, that looks weird. If you just look at that clip, I can totally see why you'd come to the conclusion that the defender had an instantaneous "oh shit" moment and slapped the ball behind his back as he helplessly got nutmegged. And, apparently, Faghani understood that, too. But, if you look at the two other angles FOX showed immediately after the penalty was awarded, everything looks much, much, much more doubtful and more like a run-of-the-mill support arm. And that's not to say this defender didn't do it intentionally. I still accept the idea he might have. But there's significant video evidence to suggest he didn't. And Faghani wasn't good enough to demand to see it. 3) I think I've said a few times that despite conceding Faghani was very good in 2018, I've never been a big fan when I've seen him elsewhere. It goes back to some AFC U23 event I saw him on a long time ago and he just went on my list as being really overrated. Maybe I've been harsh. He's no Irmatov. But stuff like this makes me think he's still not quite there. He can come up with some bizarre stuff and die on hills that don't need dying on. Anyway, this is my way of saying I'm not surprised he might have created a hiccup for himself on what could have been a glidepath toward the final. Maybe FIFA won't care because of the score line. Maybe FIFA will even see it his way and back him. But he probably had a chance to confirm himself the Final today by rejecting the OFR. The path of least resistance was just too strong. 4) Speaking of rejecting OFRs, to hear Mark Clattenburg say he's never seen one rejected when he's overseen competitions with VAR and it's been around for 5 years now is just mind-exploding. Makes me realize how bad he is at this some times and then I remember Dr. Joe and the voices inside my head shut up. 5) Someone said this was a like Ref-VAR duo for the late stages. Obviously, Faghani was/is penciled there. But I don't think this was ever a likely duo. I think you'll see a very, very, very experienced and comfortable VAR on the Final, no matter who the ref is. Language pairing will matter some, I'm sure. And if something makes obvious sense (like Turpin with Millot/Brisard), so be it. But I think that spot will be largely earned on stand-alone merit and not seen as part of a duo. The stakes are too high and the quality can be too low. I'm actually surprised by how much the assignments have been spread around to this point but that's due, I'm sure, to both politics and the good fortune that there haven't been any scandalous interventions (or non-interventions) to date.
The bottom line is that this was NOT a "clear and obvious" error....especially given that Faghani was looking right at the play when he made his on field decision NOT to award a penalty. So for me, the VAR should never have sent it down. Of course, the "clear and obvious" standard was poorly conceived and therefore pretty meaningless from day one....which is why nobody has a clue what should/shouldn't be sent down for the CR to review.
I saw it once this evening and my first reaction was “that looked awfully deliberate to me” but if you want to say it’s a support/brace arm and let it go I have no issue. It seems a very subjective call and not a clear and obvious error either way. What VAR is doing here is wrong. And if you call it it seems to me you have to card it. And he didn’t do that either. No matter how you cut it this was a mess.
The lack of thoroughness in giving mandatory misconduct after VAR penalties is another tell-tale sign of referees who are less in command of VAR. And the English. But I repeat myself.
See the match thread. I'm 99%+ confident the VAR recommendation was accepted. The corner kick was changed to a DFK coming out. That means the referee acknowledged the penalty but saw (and in this case, given the image shown, agreed with the VAR) that an APP foul negated the penalty.
The rejected On-Field Review I remember was in the 2019 Women's World Cup Round of 16 match between US and Spain when Katalin Kulscàr called a PK on Spain and rejected the VAR's recommendation and stayed with the penalty. The VAR was Makkelie I believe Kulscàr was correct to reject the recommendation, but I don't know if she ever was assigned another important match after that 1'22" of the video
Guys, there’s like one every other week in MLS. There was one in the conference finals this season. The league is an outlier, yes, but there’s a few dozen leagues now with VAR worldwide. VAR rejections are a relatively regular phenomenon. Less likely than accepting OFRs, but that’s by design. Regardless, Clattenburg saying he’s never seen one is just stupid. It’s not like we have to play trivia to find one—they happen all the time.
Clattenburg saying this is so clearly ridiculous that I think he might have been trying to imply that they're accepting everything at *this* tournament (or at least as a general statement at the two men's world cups).
This, this, this! I understand that the law seems to indicate that this was a legal touch and that a PK shouldn't have been awarded - fine. But I think common sense dictates that this type of touch in the penalty area makes sense to penalize and that your overview is most sensible: "You can slide around the area to defend, but if the ball hits your outstretched supporting arm that's on you." The defender committed to a challenge, the attacker beat them with a nutmeg, and the defender stopped the ball with their open hand - that's got to be a penalty. I take issue with the intentionality aspect of the penalty laws too. You can literally stop a one-on-one goal-scoring opportunity in the penalty area by stopping the ball with your hand unintentionally ... but defenders making honest efforts to win the ball are penalized all the time for minimal (unintentional) contact with an attacker's boot that sends them (unnaturally) diving to the ground to sell the slightest touch as a foul. Defenders are punished for putting themselves in bad positions all the time, so that should be applied to clear, obvious handballs like this too. Make it make sense.
I actually think this should be a penalty and should be a correct a call. I understand what the current law and instruction say that theoretically this isn't a hand ball due to the support arm. However, remember the support arm interpretation and the screenshot that FIFA sent out is meant for a defender sliding to stop a cross or side from either wing. That's a perfectly natural and reasonable position and move to make as a defender. This however is not one of those. You can't be giving defenders carte blanche to make challenges like this. So if any attacker rounds the goal keeper and is shooting the ball into an empty net and a defender does this we're supposed to say no penalty. The only reason this is even remotely controversial is because FIFA/IFAB had tied themselves into a corner by explicitly saying this type of play isn't a handball. Without that interpretation, I think everybody would be okay with a penalty kick here. I know there was a debate between FIFA and UEFA on the supporting arm interpretation. I think FIFA basically said that the defender is taking a risk doing this and thus it should be a penalty where UEFA said this is a natural position for the defender so it is not a penalty and, obviously, the UEFA one won out (I could be wrong and the positions of UEFA and FIFA might have been switched).
But you had this. Just a few years ago we said “defenders take a risk when sliding” and we have a million penalties. And then we all agreed that defenders have to slide to defend sometimes and they can’t always be penalized every time the ball hits their arm
I'm in favor of there being more clauses within the laws of the game to help with these decisions. For instance, there's a difference between a defender sliding in an honest effort to block a cross from the wing vs. a defender getting nutmegged in the center of the penalty area and benefitting from getting totally skinned because their hand is inexplicably allowed to handle the ball. I'd also argue that he never intended to slide anyway, he was totally juked into falling on his ass, which isn't something that should benefit a defender who then handles the ball. Regardless of what wording needs to be used in the laws of the game to make the play in question legally a penalty, I think it's fairly obvious that a penalty being awarded there is both a common sense and fair decision.
This is still an INTERPERTATION by the referee. from MY view, the defender is going to ground BEFORE the nutmeg happens he is sliding so he is doing the exact thing you are talking about when you say a defender on the wing sliding... This defender is going to ground to use as much as his body to block the ball JUST as a LB or RB would do on a cross. Now you want to allow LB or RB's to allow this on the sides of the PA but not in the center of the PA? You want some more lines to determine where a slide is allowed and where it is just to keep from getting "Skinned"? This should clear up everything nicely... You see how this slippery slope starts.
The Uruguayan player kept his fingers together, not splayed as he would naturally do to break a fall. It was a clear handball. They later tried to muck up the penalty spot so it is entirely in character.
A slippery slope to what, allowing referees to maybe apply common sense and not rely on a rulebook that strives to have as few rules as possible yet also wants every rule to be black and white (which obviously also doesn't work). It's not as if the current laws + VAR = getting every call right. Four years ago Portugal got absolutely hosed by a handball VAR decision that overturned the call on the field, so it's not as if this is anything new. Obviously, the current rules are not "clearing things up nicely" now, so allowing for more grey area in certain instances is fine with me. A defender used the most unusable part of his body to prevent a 1v1 in the penalty area because he was beat by the attacker – that shouldn't be a "tough luck" situation for the attacker who cleanly beat his man, it should be a penalty. The laws of the game already differentiate between which handball is allowed and which is not, so this wouldn't be any different.
🔴 El jefe del Departamento de Arbitraje de FIFA, Massimo Busacca, le manifestó al presidente de Conmebol, Alejandro Domínguez, que analizó la jugada y se determinó que el VAR tomó una decisión incorrecta, según comentó este miércoles Eduardo Ache a Sport 890. pic.twitter.com/TA4mJN0Nnq— Diego Martini Lemos (@cabezamartini) November 30, 2022
This information is coming from Eduardo Ache of the Uruguayan Football Association, who said in an interview with Sport 890 that the president of CONMEBOL spoke with Busacca and that Busacca told him that the decision was erroneous (from around 10:25 in the audio, in Spanish). It seems he later clarified that it was Collina and not Busacca. This according to Nelson "Bambino" Etchegoyen, who works for Sport 890. Nos aclara Eduardo Ache que fue Colina y no Busacca quien habló con Domínguez. https://t.co/sS75PQDqbj— Bambino Etchegoyen (@NDEtchegoyen) November 30, 2022
It tracks with what I've heard elsewhere, for what it's worth. Someone else who works closely with Busacca was also not happy. This is potentially a big problem for Faghani, particularly since no one else has really had a big problem thus far. So the margin of error is thin.