VAR failure again - this time at the WC ... https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/ckg80k1yn89o Was Switzerland's Remo Freuler offside before he was brought down by Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada? It is the question that, for many, remains unanswered despite Fifa finally releasing images four and a half hours after the incident happened. The move led to a penalty, converted by Breel Embolo, as the teams drew 1-1 in Saturday's World Cup Group B match in Santa Clara. Before the tournament Fifa put a lot of stock in its new, enhanced semi-automated offside system. World football's governing body scanned every player at the World Cup to create unique, lifelike avatars. It was supposed to provide the most accurate illustration of offside decisions we have ever seen. But it did not work and Fifa had to revert to drawing lines to the players and on the pitch. Fifa released a statement saying "a brief technical outage prevented the onside animation graphic from being generated". It went on to say the lines drawn by the video assistant referee (VAR) showed no offside and released two images - which remain unconvincing - but not the usual avatar graphics. Within the move, two Switzerland players could potentially have been offside. Fifa released an image for both as evidence they were onside. The first was for Embolo in the build-up, the second for Freuler before he was fouled by Abunada. Fifa's statement read: "The workflow of the VAR was not affected by this issue and followed the normal procedure in checking the on-field decision. "The lines used by the VAR to check the position of the relevant players did not show the attacking player to be in an offside position in either of the two situations immediately before the penalty decision." The semi-automated technology is not flawless. It can be impacted by many things, such as players being close together or even something as random as ticker tape on the pitch. When the technology fails in the Premier League there is the option to fall back to the old technology where the VAR draws the lines. But the offside image is produced straight away, not several hours later.
Scotland-Haiti .... not great quality football. That said, the fact that Haiti can even put out a team is pretty remarkable - they have no facilities in the country where they can gather to train, and a lot of the money FIFA provides goes to other priorities. Doak was very good - game is a bit one-dimensional still, but getting past the LB and hammering it in is always dangerous, which he did frequently.
Australia 2-0 over Turkey late last night. I saw the first half before falling asleep. I thought Turkey looked like the better team, but Australia was very organized and their 2 forwards are lightning fast. The US may have trouble with their speed on the counter.
I had zero interest in paying attention to this WC but I am in fact following the games a lot more closely than I expected. Just occurred to me .... this might be because it's the one thing able to compete with geopolitics in dominating the headlines these days. Which is good for anyone's mental health.
https://www.espn.com/football/story...e-world-cup-var-controversy-qatar-switzerland Convenient and unsurprising response.
Qatar and Aussies survived 25+ shots. Surely Curacao will face something similar vs Germany but with a little less luck.
How embarrassing for Germany. Curaco just missed an easy goal then put another good opportunity away.
Would’ve been nice to see Virg and Endo lead these teams out. Along with Mo, Szobo and Robbo who else am I missing ?