Match 99 [QF] : NOR : ENG - TURPIN (FRA)

I find whether Norway protested or not, and the timing of their protests, whether immediately or sometime thereafter, of little to no relevance.

 

You're no fun.

 

Why?

That's the whole point. Did anyone react differently because they noticed a change in the flight of the ball? And I find it difficult to believe that multiple Norwegians on the field and on the bench had a simultaneous hallucination, which suggest to me that either (A) the ball touched the wire or (B) the ball came awfully close to that wire and maybe changed trajectory ever so slightly due to an air current.

Do I make that call in real time? No. Want to know why? Because I had it drilled into my head that when a ball is in the air, watch the players on the ground. So I wouldn't have seen it.

Do I make that call if I'm the VAR? I don't know what they saw. But they're not privy to computer modeling showing where the ball would've landed under different circumstances -- hitting the wire, a slight change in the wind, etc. -- and absent that, I don't think it would be clear and obvious.

It's a fluke occurrence. That happens. We'll probably never have a definitive answer, and we'll have to live with it.

But we had people saying that had seen no evidence that Norwegian players immediately complained. Now we have evidence. And again, I don't think they hallucinated.

It didn't cost Norway the game. It's a weird thing that happened that will live on in World Cup folklore. It is what it is, even if we don't know what it is.

 

And I don't care, it was a debated issue in this thread that the link pretty clearly answers.

 

Fair observation, but I think its more so that I wouldn't have the cajones to make that call based on anything I've seen. At a minimum I'd never be able to set foot in England again and if I did I would likely be jailed as part of Starmer's crusade to criminalize hate speech.

I'm about 95% on the same page with you.

Here is my totally unsubstantiated, gut speculation of what happened in regards to Norway's protest(s) based upon the player behaviors that I witnessed. I think that the keeper believed that his kick took an odd path and that it must of hit the cable. I think the other Norway players and coach just fed off his claim. Let's be honest, how many of us noticed any change of trajectory in the live Fox broadcast which was the side angle view? It wasn't until Fox presented the behind the keeper view at halftime that anyone jumped on "it must of hit the cable" bandwagon. IMO if Fox hadn't presented the cable interference as fact, this controversy wouldn't have had the legs that it does/did. (Fully acknowledging that any controversy at the World Cup seems to get greatly exaggerated attention, and the Argentina-England match has yet to be played!)

 

I think that's fair.

And the impact of the play has been overstated. People misjudge the flight of a goal kick all the time. And England had plenty of time to recover and did not.

 

I realize we're deep in the twilight zone, but we'll keep having fun: how does this link prove when the protests happen? It's just a couple still images showing players pointing to the sky, with no clues when they happen. The images are credited to BBC, who isn't even the same organization writing the article. And then a quote from the Norway coach saying that the reactions were immediate.

What we do have in this thread, on the other hand, is video from when the supposed wire contact happens, with many players (including the entire Norway bench) in frame. And not a single player makes any kind of visible protest or indication. We also have video of the goal, where you see the keeper immediately sit down in defeat, not chase after the referee to complain.

All that said: I don't think anyone is even arguing whether players protested after the goal or not. The argument is that nobody reacted when the contact supposedly actually happened. And that perhaps, after a goal when everyone is grasping at straws, all it takes is one player (who maybe had seen a video replay at that point) to decide maybe it hit a wire to set off the rest of the complaints.

 

I’m just going to quote the link and say you can choose not to believe the report but I need better than “because” as a reason not to believe it.

 

Is there any good reason to believe the ball hit the wire? The video evidence doesn’t show a clear change in trajectory, and the accelerometer in the ball doesn’t either. I think we can pretty safely say that it didn’t touch the wire at all.

 

I’d agree, but again — if the Norwegians perceived a change, did they hallucinate?

 

My two points on this:

1. Nobody visibly reacted until after the goal (at the earliest). This is pretty clear from the videos. Unless you believe the (highly unbiased source) Norway coach, and think that maybe some players reacted without making any movements or motions. Do we think the players would just sit calmly while watching their team lose the ball unfairly? How often do we see that?
2. After the goal, all it takes is one player to have thought they saw something (or, to make something up) to set off a frenzie. We've all been there.

So yes, if a bunch of players in different parts of the field had simultaneously seen the ball hit the wire, it would be compelling. I just have seen zero good evidence of that.

 

I feel like we're going in circles here. My only point is that some people in this thread thought the video of the Norwegian players reacting was only from them complaining at halftime. The Guardian article makes it fairly clear that they complained at the time of the goal.

I'm making no claim on if it actually hit the wire or not, lust laying that part of the debate to bed.

 

To me, the clearest thing is that there was no case for VAR to intervene here.

 

I’m going to stick with the notion that they didn’t make it up out of thin air and quit going in circles here.

 

I mean, yeah. I think that's the most reasonable explanation.

One person mistakenly thinks they see something and then other people jump on the bandwagon, believing their teammate.

Even if the ball did make contact with the wire, the accelerometer data makes it clear that this contact could not have been more impactful on the ball's flight than a regular air current. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that it would be impossible for a human to confidently detect this small of a change in the ball's flight path.

Someone thought they saw something they didn't. It happens all the time, even to us referees!

 

You know what's crazy about this controversy, is there are media outlets like Fox that say that the ball dropped dramatically as a result of hitting the cable as a statement of fact. They provide video as "evidence" and many of us are "huh, I don't see that in their video". Some have added lines, circles and tracer lines to be more persuasive, but it's more deceptive than convincing.

On the flip-side you have Daily Mail (yeah I know) that claims, among other things, that "officials have even reviewed colour-contrasted image to check further and there is no cable close to the ball." Yet don't provide any evidence of this imagery or even a quote from FIFA in this regard.

This almost feels a bit like is the "dress blue or white".

 

In that, even after being provided with factual evidence that proves the dress was black and blue, some people still insist that maybe it actually was white and gold all along?

 

Looks like white and gold to me?!

 

Speaking of referee uniform. What will they throw out for the Final?

Can't be red. Can't be white and gold.

I suppose black with gold accents?

 

It's funny you say that!

https://www.footyheadlines.com/5007...-to-wear-special-red-and-gold-adidas-kit.html

 

Have I already said I really hate this nonsense?

 

You're not going to go out and buy the Adidas black with gold stripes for the fall season?

 

Yeah, I was gonna buy all 17 versions of the referee shirts!!!!