PBP: Aiming for “mid” - the 2026 consolidated match thread - all competitions

There was a very good piece in The Guardian from a former referee decrying the present use of VAR. He was particularly commenting on how Hearts were truly robbed by a phantom handball call that gave Celtic life -- and eventually the title. His view, and one I subscribe to is that the rules in football are loose because they are designed to be enforced in the moment by fallible eyes. His greatest complaint is with the offside rule. The idea of the rule is the player can't get an advantage by being ahead of the next to last defender, but what is "ahead." Now it's down to millimeters and big toes which really isn't the purpose of the rule. Maybe Bartlett was "ahead" of the player by inches, but he gained no advantage from it as he actually moved away from goal to head the ball. This sort of ruler and protractor type of officiating just kills the spontaneity of the game because every goal is a conditional celebration because it has to be reviewed in slow motion, frame by frame by some dork in a building miles away from the stadium

 

Maybe it’s my age but when I saw it was sponsored by Fruitist I was like, really guys?

 

Until the goal that wasn’t, I was gonna come in here and note that our set piece delivery is very poor.

Weiler has to figure out how to play Baribo and Louis together in a way that supports better possession. They both seem like center forwards, neither seems like a #11, they’re both #9s.

 

1. If you remember back to pre VAR days, attackers NEVER EVER EVER got any benefit of the doubt. Under pre VAR standards, 99% chance he’s called offside in the moment.
2. You say this, but there are going to be plays that go the other way too.
3. Again, going back to pre VAR days, people bitched about refs too. But in those cases, they were bitching about refs actually getting calls wrong, not them getting calls right when it’s a razor thin margin.

MLS does VAR very very well. My only complaint is that it feels like some replay officials try to re-referee the game.

I like it.

 

As for VAR always getting plays right, I offer you the VAR decided handball that benefitted DCU in the first Chicago game. Not called on the field, ball clearly going out of play and it strikes the players arm as his back is turned. VAR does re-referee the game and those calls are just as varied, and often wrong, as the ones made on the field. If VAR had existed back in the day, there is no constant talking about Nowak's offside in '98, no "Hand of God" goal, etc. The NFL tried VAR on DPI after a famously blown call in New Orleans, it lasted one season. However, because pointy ball is designed to have long breaks between action, we now get multiple metaphysical discussions of what is a "catch" through VAR. Sheesh.

 

I agree. The major attraction of a game like soccer is the continuous flow of the action.

 

Even the best implementation of VAR sucks manatee balls.

Even if I was cool with VAR's existence, WHICH I ABSOLUTELY AM NOT, this is the wrong way to look at things. VAR's only valuable use is to check something that can objectively be known (or at least nearly objectively known). For example, it's clear from the replay on Saturday that Bartlett was offside by ~12 inches. Now one may quibble whether something like that should ever be called in the first place (the point of creating offsides was to reduce cherry picking, not to penalize a forward for being a few inches ahead of the defender) but if we are to follow the rules as written, it can be objectively stated that Bartlett was breaking them, even if by a minuscule amount.

Subjective uses for VAR are almost always terrible, like 99.99% of the time. The worst of course is when a ref sees two players going for the ball and the forward falls over, does a barrel roll, flails his arms, and screams as if he was being attacked by an axe-wielding bonobo. The ref laughs and tells the forward to get the fück up and stop embarrassing himself. Then VAR calls him over to take a look and BEHOLD there may have been the slightest bit of incidental contact!!! Automatic goal.

The problems with VAR are manifest. It breaks the rhythm, it is a force multiplier for cheating, it allows for more referee discretion in a game that has always given referees far too much discretion, it increases the likelihood of corruption, it creates a situation where different leagues play by different rules, it makes defenders follow a separate set of rules than forwards, and so on. But if they are gong to force us to use it, use it for objectively measurable incidents, not for subjective bullshit.

 

Yep, if you want endless review of plays then watch pointy ball a once reasonably entertaining sport now ruined by television, advertisers and brain dead ********tard owners.

 

I have only one quibble with your otherwise excellent post -- bonobos like to fcuk, it's chimpanzees that are axe wielders and we as a species are descended from chimps.

 

Not descended from either of them but both are the ape we are most closely related. The common descendant of all of us was from about 7 million years ago.

 

And that bit about bonobos and chimps is my 'new thing I learned for the day' for May 18, 2026.

 

And who says the internet fora are just intellectual wastelands?

 

I think this is part of why the Wenger rule should be seriously looked at (that and I just think playing the opponent offside is too easy a copout defensive technique). At least if the rule is that the whole body must be offside, and it comes down to the millimeter, everyone will agree that there was a material advantage the attacker gained.

 

It will still come down to absurd margins, looking across the field. All this does is change the line, not how it would be practiced or evaluated, unfortunatly.

 

Unless its Arsenal.

 

But there's no way to do that, you can't go back to the 19th century. The TV replays will still show it. Best you can do is move that line to a place where the attacker is actually getting some advantage.

 

I support VAR on offsides and handball calls. Refs and linesmen are fallable. Their human fallability can result in great injustices. I'm thinking of Thierry Henry's handball that screwed Ireland (wasn't it Ireland?) and Maradona's "Hand of God."

 

Don't forget the 2002 USA vs Germany game in the World Cup and the missed DOGSO red on the goal line.

 

Dallas deemed Frings’ arm to be in a natural position. The handling rules were different at the time. Maybe Dallas would have changed his mind after seeing the replays.

 

But would bonobos or chimps be better at implementing VAR?

 

I'm planning on going to tomorrow's Montreal game at Audi. It should be interesting in that DC United seems to be buying into Weiler's structure and Montreal's attack is gaining competency. This really looks like a key game for the last playoff slot.

Hope the rain stops before game time!

 

Rain usually helps the home team. I'll be there, but fine if it pours.