The majority of cards in this game were for SPA offenses. It wasn’t a game filled with countless reckless challenges. I refuse to agree with the fact that if he gives Kroos the first yellow card that the rest of the game is smooth. You cannot blame the referee every time a game has a breakdown in behavior.
What you’re asking for is going against what VAR is there for. It isn’t there to ask the referee to go to the monitor for every close incident to review everything. It’s to only call him over for clear errors. People complain about VAR both ways. They complain about re-refereeing the game like you are asking for and the excessive delays and stoppages and only wanting them for clear 100% errors. Then they complain about close decisions not going to review at all, when the fact that it’s a “close decision” is exactly WHY it’s not going to review
I am looking forward to the people who said there wasn't a PK for Germany vs Denmark say its a definitive PK now I am in the both were penalties camp (and I am sure 100% of Germans are too) with the Cucurella being less of penalty
Please: EVERYBODY but his ref would call that a handball because it was an obvious handball--about as obvious as it gets. NO VAR? Get rid of VAR--it is a freakin' joke, and has been since it was started. VAR officials are notorious for intervening when they've supposedly spotted some trivial, technical infraction that neither the referee nor anybody else spotted, and which didn't affect the play, but which results in a game-deciding PK---see the handball infraction called against Denmark in its group-stage match against Germany. And then when egregious referee mistakes have been made, or certainly seem to be made, as we saw with the no-handball call that was obviously a handball, VAR does nothing! VAR is just an overlay of incompetence, bias/subjectivity---or worse--atop the same issues with the on-field referee. It would be much better for everyone to just live with referee decisions rather than have this farce that is VAR.
Of course he moved his arm deliberately. Players at this level know what they are doing. We're not talkiing about U16s. Yes, the arms can naturally move away from the body, though where his were far beyond that spot. The time for him to move his arm out of the danger zone was when the ball was rolling in space to the attacker about to take the shot. Other defenders already had their hands behind their backs in anticpation of that shot. He had plenty of time to do so. I'm not buying the poor player argument in this case.
Is the standard still “clear and obvious error”? Because you can’t tell me that the no-handball call there is a clear and obvious error—that is, every ref would agree it should be called. It was a borderline call that some people would call and some wouldn’t. That’s not the type of situation in which VAR should be involved.
Correct, but you can here. I'm usually the one ringing the "don't blame the referee for 'losing control' just because the game is ill-tempered" bell, but that doesn't mean we can never say a referee lost control. Being so restrictive would render all game-management analysis impossible or moot. In this case, we can draw a relatively clear cause and effect between specific referee errors and increases in the game temperature. Referee fails to caution reckless offenses > the intensity of future tackles increases. Referee lacks consistency in foul selection and card selection > players become visibly frustrated and confused, showing that they don't know what constitutes a foul or YC > players can't properly calibrate to the referee's standard > more YCs.
But that's exactly my point. It is very much debatable. And suddenly people arrived--at least two of whom are stipulated Dutch partisans with, one must presume, an axe to grind--with talk about it being an obvious handball and even at least one insinuation of corruption. If Taylor had called it, I'd be defending him, too. He did not have a flawless game by any stretch. But I think that focusing on this incident as some sort of catastrophe is A) wrong on the merits and B) distracts from what could be much more critical analysis elsewhere. Yes, this is a huge call. But at the same time, it could go either way and people would be upset regardless. Discussing where his line was for misconduct and fouls throughout the entireity of the match seems more interesting and productive, to the extent anything here can be. If we focus on the handball, we'll just go round and round and round in circles.
The Dane was running--and, yea, his arm was out a bit. The more important point--if soccer and VAR had any intelligence and common sense--is that if the ball hit the Dane's hand, it did nothing but nick a fingernail by a millimeter--and I'm not certain it did that. The flight of the ball did not change in the least. Most important, the supposed infraction has zero influence on the play---none, zero. It didn't prevent any offensive action by Germany. So why make such a ridiculous intervention? Then, today, it's a pretty obvious handball--he moves his arm out. It is not straight down. He's standing right in front of Spain's goal: If the ball doesn't hit has hand, it's probably a goal. And yet no call by the ref? NO VAR invention? It's BS. And always, we get the following in defense of a terrible no-call that would have been a handball 499 out of 500 times: "Well, according to the latest interpretation of the handball rule, clause 41 C: If the arm is at less than 45 degree angle to the body, and the fingers of the hand in question are mostly together as opposed to splayed, and if the defender is making his body both bigger and smaller at the same time, and if the defender does not have his tongue out at a the moment of contact...then clearly the call was correct and VAR was right to let it go." OKaaaaay.
But that's not what I said or am trying to debate. I believe I've said a few times he moved his arm deliberately. But it seems that you think he's deliberately moving the ball into the path of the ball. Like, he's intentionally trying to block the ball in reaction to the shot. I'm saying he's deliberately moving his arm back closer to his body. In other words, trying to reduce his body from its allegedly unnatural size. There's nothing in the LOTG explicitly on this, so the retort to that can be none of this matters. But your seeming suggestion that he was deliberately moving the arm into the path of the shot seems wrong to me, based on everything I see.
Seriously, what are we doing here? Appeals were made straight away. The spin of the ball changes. The technology confirms the touch. You're just going to come here and assert falsities about a decision from the other day just to buttress your argument in this situation? Literally no one is doing this. Like, not even close. We're discussing whether either of two very, very broad categories of handball apply. And those seem to be the categories that most stakeholders have wanted. And, I think for the most part, people seem to agree this is in a grey zone. It is very obvious you're not acting in any good faith here. As much as you accuse other people of debating in a manner you don't like, your chosen approach seems to be that calls you want to be are correct and calls you don't like are incorrect.
I would agree with you if the majority of the ridiculous number of yellows were reckless. I’ll need to rewatch the YC incidents, but based on google match report, it appears 5 (potentially 6) were SPA, 4 (maybe 5) were reckless, 5 were dissent or UB, and 1 was DR. I’m sorry, but this card breakdown does not say “Taylor lost control of the game by not calling the first yellow on Kroos”. SPA, dissent and UB (celebrations) are mostly standalone offenses. These offenses would have happened whether or not that first caution comes out. This wasn’t a missed caution so the players take stuff into their own hands. So I disagree with you and we aren’t going to see eye to eye regardless so it doesn’t matter
Mass has finally uncovered the secret of how players, coaches, fans and pundits analyze refereeing decisions
Not at all: I was completely indifferent to both the Denmark--Germany game and this Germany-Spain game. Not a fan of any of these teams. I'm simply pointing out the nonsense that has been VAR for a LONG time, which is that it has a terribly habit of intervening on the most trivial and inconsequential infraction--even they are even that---picayune things that have no bearing on a play--but which, because of VAR idiocy, result in the award of game-winning PKS. And then, 10 minutes later, VAR will ignore a much more significant and obvious infractions that should have been called or, at the very least, reviewed. I've seen many examples of this habit for years with handball and foul-in-box calls. There is no common sense applied, for starters. Soccer refereeing is hard, to be sure--more like impossible. The idea that one man should cover a field bigger than an American football field and make calls on hard-to-see fouls/no fouls, etc. 10 or 20 yards or longer away is ludicrous on its face. There should be, at a minimum, an official on each end of the field. VAR is supposed to help--in theory--but it has made things worse, IMO, with its consistently idiotic decisions. Nobody can seriously defend that no-call on the handball today. And no VAR! But yet have somebody's thumb touch the ball on the outside of the box and have absolutely no affect on a play or attack--and VAR is suddenly eagle-eyed and calling the REF over--and next comes the game-winning PK for a nothing infraction! It's a freakin' joke--seriously.
Not going to get into the weeds of the rest of your ranting but regarding the “only one ref in soccer” thing, it is quite weird. This is the only sport where one ref is basically in charge of everything. But I’ve been on the other side, both with dual soccer matches and duals of other sports where two or even three of us have whistles on the playing surface, and while obviously it helps game coverage, it brings its own problems where refs call the game completely differently from each other depending on which half of the field, or being the ref yourself and seeing your partner call something that upsets you Believe me, with the way soccer fans and players/coaches rage about consistency, people would be completely enraged watching foul calls completely change depending on which half of the field the team is on.
Mmm, ranting you say...when I read " Holy crap this game is like what I expect Netherlands turkey to be. Up to 13 yellows now " from you I havenot got the slightest intention to believe someone, who posted a stupendous stupid text I quoted, which in fact is exactly the same you accuse others of.
I guess in the middle of the night it's easier to pretend that Netherlands-Portugal, Netherlands-Spain and Netherlands-Argentina KO matches didn't all involve the Netherlands.
Consistency would be an issue if FIFA/UEFA went to 2 refs--for a while. But it would be up to the governing bodies to work to build consistency among the pool of refs over time, and that can be done, to a degree, even in a sport where a lot of calls have an element of subjectivity. Look at the NBA in the U.S.---3 officials on a /much/ smaller playing venue, also with foul calls that have an element of subjectivity--and yet they make it work reasonably well. Seems a logical move to me for a sport in which the officiating is still often baffling and frustrating. This game was very physical, there was a LOT of fouling--and I thought the ref did a decent job of controlling it. It was a game that needed a lot of yellow cards, though I'm sure there was inconsistency in the way some of them were handed out. The guy did make a ridiculously unforgivable mistake on the handball he somehow refused to call--and the same applies to VAR. Scandalous!
What are you on about. My post is about a stupid presumption this match is about to explode, based on the biased perception the Turkish players will be out of control, because of the suspension of one of them by UEFA. If the match would have been Turkey vs Romania, my comment would have been the same. Do you really think, if this I would nearly mark as a racist comment about Turkish players, comes true and they really start playing dirty, only the Dutch players would respond likewise and other nations would undergo the foulings without reacting to it? Really?
So, @MassachusettsRef What gives you the impression that loony is right about this match exploding? Any signs I missed? UEFA missed signs and put on the job a nobody, who's bound to fail as that loony already with alot of certainty is claiming?