Domestic Leagues 25-26

5:28:



This seems over-punished? Nature of challenge isn't great but it really is pretty glancing and ultimately low.

I really thought VAR might mean the sport was more universally officiated. Looking at this versus the Rogers foul I just posted about on the England thread and every day there's just more and more evidence that won't happen.

 

5:00:

 

Not following or maybe I just disagree. That transcript is pretty normal for VAR communication, accounting for any issues with translation. Maybe very last portion before the "but it's your decision anyway" pushes the envelope a bit as it is a last ditch effort and expresses disagreement, but I have heard that sort of thing more than once in MLS.

It seems he was suspended because the initial recomendation for a handball penalty was so wrong and Rocchi needed to give Lazio a scalp for all this. Of course, the irony is he's just saying it's not a penalty and none of this should have been reviewed in the first place.

 

So this is from August and Serie C, but just came up in my feed.

First, it appears Serie C started an FVS experiment and then immediately scrapped it. I don't have information on the discontinuation of the experiment, but that's what is said in this article: https://sports.yahoo.com/article/serie-c-coach-var-experiment-215000641.html

But second and more importantly, take a look at the example cited:

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So Capri defender is given a 2CT for SPA handling. Except, there was no handling at all--there was no offence. But, of course, 2CTs can't be challenged. So what did the Capri coach do? He challenged his own second yellow by arguing it should have been DOGSO red. Referee goes to monitor, sees there's no offence at all, and is compelled to wipe out yellow card and red card.

 

I mean, the fact that second yellows will be subject to review soon with VAR likely means this doesn't become a real problem for FVS (as the reviewable incidents will translate to the challengable incidents... I think). But it illustrates that there's always a loophole and when you start allowing coaches to manipulate them, you will get unexepcted results.

I really wonder if the incident caused the scrapping of the experiment or there was something else going on. Hard to find good reporting. I'm seeing one suggestion that the experiment was actually 24-25 and was not intended to last into 25-26, but that seems a little dubious if this incident was in August.

 

Not necessarily. The problem is that the inverse situation (a blatantly missed second yellow) will never get reviewed. So there's an equity issue right from the start. And if you fix the equity issue, now you're reviewing even more stuff. And yes, at some point there's just too much stuff being subject to review that you are ruining/killing/[pick your other verb]ing the game for the sake of an impossible pursuit of attaining perfection.

The inherent problem is that if you have a VAR system with narrow, distinct categories subject to review, eventually something egregious falls outside those categories and then you need to expand the categories. Which is the slippery slope argument I've made from day one. And one day you're just video reviewing the whole game start to finish.

Honestly, a better system might be simply to say "egregious, potentially match-changing decisions are subject to review, per the VAR's judgment." We're already playing with the "clearly wrong" standard, which has evolved in most competitions to "most optimal decision." So just go back to a higher standard--the sort of stuff that prompted the need for VAR to begin with (e.g., Hand of Frog)--and open everything up for review. So, yes, phantom handballs leading to a 2CT would be subject to review. Miniscule offside decisions and 70/30 handball penalty decisions would not be on the table., however.

We know that won't happen, though. Because once verifiably incorrect decisions aren't fixed because they don't meet the "egregious" threshold, we're back to square one.

 

I honestly don't get what I need to explain here. It seems like you get it, but think it's okay?

It's not equity between two teams in one game; it's equity over the type of decisions that can be reviewed. Errors of commission can be annulled but errors of omission cannot be fixed. In a vacuum, sure, that's the same for both teams. In a given game, week, or season, it will make a huge difference.

To add, it's the real world versus the theoretical. In theory, it's all equal. In practice, when Team A has a bad red card come off the board and then later isn't given a red card that they should have had given... you think Team B is going to be happy with that?

 

Maybe. But in this case it would run counter to what we know about refereeing. Which is that most referees are more afraid of making an error of commission than one of omission. So would the mechanics around being able to correct a given red but not a non-given red lead to more reds given? I’m not so sure. It might just lead to even fewer reds overall.