I thought overall she did a good job. I do wish they had video review for Sinclair's rather cynical elbow to Krieger's eye, and then grabbing her own head and feigning injury to sell it as head-to-head. No way Algeria could have seen it real-time, even with her overall good positioning, and Deane would have needed x-ray vision to catch it from the AR2 spot.
The group that didn't have the US in it played in a USL stadium down on the US/Mexico border so who knows if they were set up for VAR
It's not. I shocked this is still even a discussion. Again, the Gold Cup hasn't even had VAR yet. No women's event other than the WWC has had it. And the only non-FIFA youth men's events (yes, I know the Olympics is "youth" for men but not for women) that have had it are the U21s at UEFA and U23s at AFC (I think). An allusion was made above to even CAF having VAR. While that's technically true, it was accomplished by bringing in a bunch of UEFA referees to effectively do the job. AFC did the same thing. Those confederations are just now starting to get to actually training their own VARs. CONCACAF is doing the same thing with--again, I imagine--an ultimate goal of Gold Cup 2021 being the unveiling for primetime. Outside the MLS and Liga MX referees, almost none of the officials have VAR experience and have no way of getting real VAR experience (aside from events like the Leagues Cup--which used VARs from the two leagues this past year). It's even more difficult for the female referees. As was stated above, NWSL doesn't have VAR. Until the clubs, sponsors and broadcasters think it's financially viable, it won't happen. And if NWSL doesn't have VAR, you can bet that a women's confederational international tournament won't. On another point, there's been a consistent reference to the idea that IFAB must "sign off." While that is probably still true in writing and was true at the beginning of this "experiment," the experiment phase--such as it was--really is over. If CONCACAF wanted to use VAR on a tournament, it would. IFAB wouldn't stop them. Do you think IFAB tried to stop the EPL because it's officials weren't properly trained? Of course not. There's a lot wrong in CONCACAF--always was, always will be--but at least they've been smart enough to realize no one is ready for VAR outside the two big leagues. Finally, now that I think of it... has FIFA confirmed there will be VAR at both Olympic tournaments in Japan? I guess I've been assuming that will be the case, but I haven't actually seen anything stating so yet.
also, we are dealing with a tournament where officials have called offside on a goal kick and a corner kick...so VAR would just make things worse. The bigger challenge is how to improve refereeing on the women's side in CONCACAF (and in Asia/Africa too, btw). I personally think any effort or money thrown at putting VAR there would be wasted, when the focus should be on improving the real time capabilities of these officials. Along those lines, if they do push VAR on the women's side, that would be a give away that their ultimate concern is not quality of official, but public perception of equality. That may very well be their real concern (I doubt many of the CONCACAF execs give a hoot about this, but they do care about being seen as not caring). But if they really cared about investing a few million bucks in improving the quality of official on the women's side, they would identify this second tier of women's official from central america and island nations, and get them into some women's tournaments in Mexico or the US. Bring them in for a youth tournament, or Florida's women's championships, or the women's league pre-season, or something. Hire a development coach. I mean there are probably a dozen things that would be 100xs more effective in helping this problem than VAR.
These are all good ideas. Unfortunately, I do think the quality of play has some impact on the quality of officiating as well. All of this works hand in hand. The men's game is a pretty good example of this - CONMEBOL referees and UEFA referees have the Copa America, Euros, Copa Libertadores/Sudamerica, and Champions League/Europa League. They just have a higher quantity of tough matches to officiate. Even on the men's side, the number of challenging matches just aren't there. Sure, you'll have USA/Mexico, a few CCL matches involving MLS and Liga MX teams, and then some of the Hex matches in San Pedro Sula, San Jose, or the Azteca that will present challenges, but those types of matches aren't as common as in UEFA and CONMEBOL. The only theoretical answer to this is for FIFA to identify promising referees in the non-UEFA and CONMEBOL countries and find ways to get them matches in South America or Europe. But the continental federations will battle that (and I don't blame them - they should be looking to promote their own officials first). I think CONCACAF should start by ensuring some of these officiating crews can officiate matches in USWNT friendlies, youth tournaments, and perhaps a match or two in the SheBelieves Cup or other "friendly" tournaments like that. Even if some of these referees could work some of the U15-U17 boys and girls matches at the CONCACAF level, that would be a start.
If they don't know that there is no offside on corner kicks and goal kicks, they need to be doing Under 12's.
Of course they know that. They got lost in the big moment and had brain freezes. We've all done stupid things that we know better than to do--and those are more likely to come out when we are beyond our comfort zone. And many of these officials are out of their comfort zone--largely for the reasons discussed above that they don't have the regular high level opportunities, so these games are farther from "normal" for them.
I asked around and nobody knew what the plan was for Tokyo and VAR (yet). I'll see what I can find out.
It would be incredibly strange if there wasn't VAR for the men. And, inherently, that would make it quite strange for the women since it's the same overall event (and the women had it at WWC). But we'll see
Less than a year ago, Princess Brown was an AR in a FIFA Women's World Cup semi-final, so she could not just "get lost in the big moment" (assuming you agree that FWWC is "bigger" than CWOQ).
The reference was not with respect to VAR being used in women's soccer, but about VAR being used in general. If CAF needed UEFA referees to help with VAR duties at the last AFCON, Concacaf could have done exactly the same at the last Gold Cup, but they did not. Speaking of CAF (a confederation that seems less organized and with fewer resources than Concacaf), they are expanding the use of VAR to a second competition: https://www.cafonline.com/news-cent...-up-for-chan-with-preparatory-course-in-egypt
Of course. The word "needed" does a lot of work in that sentence. Right. And? I mean the implication here seems to be that as much VAR as possible as quick as possible the better. We have a lot of evidence--much of it from the most lucrative league in the world with allegedly some of the best officials in the world--that shows that argument not to be grounded in fact. Do you think the AFCON or AFC U23s was noticeably better because they had VAR? Again, CONCACAF is what it is and it often isn't pretty. But I would argue that taking things slow here is an effort at preventing disaster. I don't think bringing UEFA referees in to work with CONCACAF referees on VAR is the answer that it seems some think it is. For reference: https://www.concacaf.com/en/article/concacaf-referees-attending-var-training http://proreferees.com/2020/02/04/mls-pro-var-partnership-with-concacaf-off-to-a-positive-start/
You actually think it is more likely that she doesn't know the very basic elements of Law 11 than that she got lost in the moment and had a brain freeze? (And please note that I did not refer to her specifically as to her experience--but I will acknowledge I didn't realize she had been at the WWC.)
I'm not aware of any IFAB circular or announcement saying that the requirement to get permission from them to use VAR has been dropped. Personally, I would be astounded if it had. From what I know of the IFAB, that's just not how they operate. As for the idea that EPL officials weren't properly trained to use VAR, that is without foundation. There have certainly been criticisms of the way VAR is failing to meet expectations in England, and unflattering comparisons with the use of VAR in other countries but that doesn't mean they didn't complete the required training. Many of the perceived problems with the implementation of VAR in England is because (in my opinion and that of many others) they are not applying the VAR protocol as it was originally intended.
I think my use of the phrase "sign off," without quoting the type of statement I was responding to, didn't serve me well. Yes, the LOTG say that IFAB and FIFA must give written permission before VAR can be used in a competition. That's codified, so no getting around it. To the extent IFAB needs to literally "sign off" on VAR use, my statement wasn't true. But what I was intending to say was that IFAB wasn't in the weeds on VAR training. If CONCACAF asked to use VAR right now, IFAB would say "yes" without doing any quality-control check over how the VARs would be trained. That sign off--for any serious association or competition authority--would be more of a formality. After all, how/why would IFAB and FIFA let CAF use VARs when it essentially had no one to perform the duties well? Okay, I don't understand the first part of your statement here when you concede the second part. My point was and is that the FA and EPL trained its VARs poorly. And they were able to train them poorly precisely because there is no real quality-control over the training from IFAB. It's literally just--to correctly use the phrase I incorrectly used earlier--"sign off." There is no required training. Hell, FIFA's training is different than Italy's, which is different than Mexico's, which is different than PRO's, etc., etc., etc. And this is why you're seeing discrepancies among leagues. Remember, EPL literally announced/declared they were going to not follow the protocols and IFAB still "signed off." IFAB knew EPL officials weren't being properly trained and didn't say a word. That was my point.
Correct Red Card (SFP) issued by Tatiana Guzmán Alguera in the 1L of the promotion-relegation playoff in Nicaragua for a very brutal tackle.
When it looks like even the offender’s own teammates are giving him the “Dude, seriously? WTF??” treatment, that’s a pretty easy send off. I did like how she came in with the red already in hand to let the yellow team know she had no hesitation about the send off while their teammate was lying injured. That kind of play can turn into an ugly situation quickly, but her quick action made everything else around the action pretty tame, all things considered.