Match 4: USA : PAR - MAKKELIE (NED)

I don't know how to accurately judge referees on how well they do unless they completely blow it. I feel like he did a pretty good job. Not sure what I would identify that he did as not great.

 

Allowing a restart on a play that was apparently being checked was an oopsie.

 

LOTG VAR protocol principles section #10

so yes, makkelie allowing play to restart then going back to review the mistaken identity card was allowed per the laws

 

From the perspective of a fan, I thought he was terrific. I was thrilled to see a referee finally punish cynical behavior against the US, in particular targeting Pulisic.

From a referee’s perspective, however, I thought he was just fine, not good and not great. He failed to give a card on the studs to the calf/Achilles, he missed some fouls in the middle of the field, he missed at least two corner-kick/goal-kick decisions, he got hit by the ball, and he was fooled on the simulation, which I thought was simulation live (though the camera angle was surely different than Makkelie’s). Plus his ARs, particularly AR1, did not distinguish themselves.

But no KMIs, some well-spotted misconduct (the cleats to the top of the US player’s boot), and he kept a lid on things. So he and the crew did fine.

 

I thought Makkelie was not so good tonight. Quite inconsistent in foul recognition, did not seem to recognize the targeting of certain of the US players, and in card selection and too many incorrect calls, especially the missed corner kick after a very obvious keeper deflection. The totally incorrect card to Ream was a really poor decision.

PH

 

Descartes thinks; therefore, he is.

The Laws do not think; therefore, they are not.

 

To this non-ref US fan, I thought he was excellent.

A lesser ref could've let this game get out of hand once Paraguay got frustrated and started kicking lumps out of people…

 

I’m late to the party here but I’m surprised more people didn’t understand this law change. I don’t remember where I’ve seen these things, but ever since the law changes were announced it seemed well-understood that the “mistaken identity” change was designed specifically to open up this simulation issue for review. I guess the communication of that wasn’t as strong in everyone’s circle as it was in my own; I can’t blame people for not knowing about it if this many well-informed people were in the dark.

As you pointed out, the big (huge) issue is that play restarted before the OFR. It’s still reviewable of course. And the restart should be a dropped ball. But the bigger problem is you have a ball bouncing around in the penalty area for five seconds during a period where it may or may not be in play. If Schrodinger’s football were to go into the net, would the goal stand? Actually, it’s quite clear the ball was in play, and that a goal technically would have to count if scored, and that’s a massive goof-up from Makkelie or Del Cerro or both.

Lastly, I really hate the super delayed offside flag that took away a US goal in the first half. The old method of SAOT, where the AR’s call was made in the field after the attack ended, was much better for the average fan. Almost immediately after the goal you knew with 95% certainty that you could celebrate it. With this new system, you can’t be as confident that the goal is good if there’s a 10 second delay after the goal for the AR to flag even a super duper obvious offside. This reeks of over-reliance on technology. Just put the flag up immediately after the goal and let the tech correct you if needed!

 

I don’t see why we can’t have ARs raise the flag to signal what they believe to be an offside call and let the center ignore it until the next stoppage.

If the AR is signaling for something else that requires immediate attention, waggle the flag.

In fact, I’d change the Laws so the AR can raise the flag when a ball is played forward and an attacking player in an OP shows any inclination to play it.

With those changes, fans would know immediately that a play is being checked, and players might recognize that they’re off and stop themselves from colliding with someone.

 

There are other decisions to make. The AR can't just take themselves out of the play for who knows how long. What about the other 3 offside decisions, the goal line boundary decision, and maybe the penalty kick decisions that are now happening 20+ yards from them? Unless you mean using an American football style flag that can be picked up later, which I'm sure you don't

 

wow. I had totally forgotten that. But this is another case of really poor drafting. (Shocked!) The language says “that offense,” which made sense when it was really mistaken identity—oops, gave the yellow to 7 instead of 17. And it made sense to fix that even if play had restarted. It doesn’t make sense to restart and then change simulation to a foul or vice versa—why is that any different from any other error that has to be fixed before play starts?

with the goal here to get at simulation, they should have been explicit—and why make it only if a caution is given? I would imagine part of the thought process was to make it easier to card simulation, as there is a fail safe. But the weird effects of this are staggering. On a defensive foul just outside the PA, it is now reviewable if the attacker is cautioned for simulation, but not if he isn’t. And as already noted, the only reason the R could go back here—haven’t we just created an incentive for Rs to caution defenders so that something can be reviewed?

IFAB should have created a separate category instead of getting cute and trying to pretend this is a kind of mistaken identity. It sometimes feels like they care more about using as few words as possible to make changes seem less radical than in drafting clearly for understanding and thinking through the permutations of what flows from the change.

 

I don't understand why they didn't just rip the band aid off and make all cards reviewable at this point instead of drafting this bizarre loop holes.

We all know where this is going to end up.

Just get it over with it.

 

Does anyone have any explanation of how this semi-automated offside actually mechanically works?

Surely there has to be a human in the process who has to set the kick point during this to trigger the "buzz."

Otherwise would the ARs be getting a buzz the whole game (i.e. an attacker lazily walking back would give one of the ARs a constant buzz until he gets back onside)?

 

It would just be easier to make "clear and obvious simulation" an interveneable offence, wouldn't it? You would be praised by all the 'anti-diving crusaders' and, it seems to me, doing it the way it was yesterday isn't going to help that much in the grand scheme of everything - most 'dangerous' freekicks at the edge of the penalty area are central with lots of defenders around and, hence, don't lead to a SPA booking; if Ream wasn't cautioned, there would have been no intervention.

 

Just curious -- are we actually sure the flag didn't go up immediately when the ball was in the net? I don't think the AR was on screen.

It seems long delayed, but I am also open to the possibility that the commentators just didn't notice the flag right away.

Tbh, both offside decisions on that play (and especially the second) were obvious enough in real time that I'd prefer a world where the ARs were brave enough to just call it live -- but I also understand why they lean heavily towards letting it play out.

 

But isn't that Pulisic offside in the buildup to the disallowed goal exactly what the SAOT should be catching? I haven't gone back to look at the video to see exactly how much time passed, but it was a pretty significant amount. And I thought the point of the SAOT was to be able to catch those offsides a bit more quickly, instead of having to wait for the whole attack to play out and possibly seeing a player get seriously injured on a play that was offside anyway.

 

Was he off? There is a 10 cm cushion in the quick results, so even assuming he was off, it may have been too close for that criteria.

 

From Graham Scott’s discussion of the reversed caution in thr Athletic:

There then appeared to be doubts over whether Makkelie needed to view replays for himself at the pitch-side monitor or could take the VAR’s word for it. Mistaken identity is supposed to be a factual decision, like most offsides, so the referee does not need to watch it back.​

An interesting thought —but one that clearly highlights that this has nothing to do with “mistaken identity.” Whether something is a foul or simulation is certainly not a clear factual decision like other factual decisions that don’t require an OFR. Some are pretty clear cut, but not all. Having the VAR alone decide something was simulation not a foul (or vice versa) seems a fundamentally bad idea and a serious departure from how VAR is used in every other context.

Which is a good transition to his closing:

Goodness knows where all this ends, but one thing is for sure: the original concept of VAR — that it should offer maximum benefit for minimum interference — has departed the scene.​

 

Looks like more than 10 cm to me. I don't fault AR1 here, because I'm sure that's how the ARs have been trained, but this seems to me like exactly what SAOT should be catching.

It was almost exactly 10 seconds from Pulisic getting the ball to the goal being scored. I don't know how fast SAOT can get the job done on a relatively straightforward decision like this one, but I'd hope it can be a little quicker than that.