That Martinez tackle on Cole Palmer today . . .yeesh, only a yellow. The ghost of Sir Alex still has some powers, I guess.
Going from 17th to 1st in THAT weather is astounding. Max is more machine than human. Granted, he was a bit fortunate yesterday with delaying his pit until the red flag, but what's so great about him is that his driving is super-aggressive yet he makes few (if any) mistakes.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...andro-martinez-cole-palmer-man-united-chelsea "It usually creates a situation where a VAR can look for any evidence to support the on-field decision rather than being more forthright about what they can actually see...It's a perfect example of why VAR isn't going to give consistency of decision-making when the on-field call has the weight."
This is a problem IMO in all sports with replay. The on-field call stands should only apply when there is not a good camera angle to view the incident. This was a big problem in the NFL, refs were taught to let a potential fumble play out to see who recovered, even if they were confident it was not the correct call. Then you would have review where the default assumption was that the on-field call was correct. I think they have fixed that now. England in particular has the problem where the VAR doesn't want to overrule his mate on the pitch. One of two fixes, either make VAR a separate entity that aren't on-field refs and empower them to make the correct call based on what they see. Or as soon as VAR is flagged, call the on-field ref to the monitor immediately and let them see more angles. But the current system sucks.
I don't think these things are the same, though. Replay in football doesn't really touch most judgment calls: there's no way to review a holding penalty, for example. The big controversies over VAR are how judgment calls are reviewed. I'm not convinced that what Webb wants to do for judgment calls is necessarily wrong, but the implementation is hopelessly screwed up and all over the place. There's no way that Saliba's challenge being a yellow was a clear and obvious error and Van de Ven's challenge (as an example) being a yellow wasn't a clear and obvious error.
Interesting idea. Has that been tried in other leagues? I.e. the NFL which I don't follow, but which you highlighted in your post, implying that it works well. This is one of my pet peeves. EPL goes out of their way to resist sending the HR to the on-pitch screen. Oftentimes they waste even more time keeping the review within the VAR room, than if they had just quickly told HR that decision is debatable so go look and decide for yourself. MLS seems to do more of that and by and large it seems to work better and faster.
Receiver catches a pass, turns, gets hit and ball pops out is a judgement call, fumble or incomplete. A lot of other calls can be very close, control of a catch before hitting the ground, arm moving forward on a pass. Targeting in college is subjective. The way the EPL does it now is intentionally obtuse, on-field ref sees the play one time at full speed and the strong assumption is he got it right. Except when the VAR randomly decides otherwise. I don't think you can ever get subjective calls 100% correct, but I do think if they trusted the video replay rather than fight against it, the results would improve.
And the evidence of this is that VAR works better in literally every other major league than it does in the Premier League.
VAR can never work while there is still no accountability and transparency for the refs themselves. why are there still so few refs and not random assignments?
Why would anyone want to suffer the abuse that they do from fans? If the PL want the best refs, it's going to take the same approach as with players, recruit from abroad and pay higher wages. Also VAR are all the same on-field refs, you are limited to the ones that can run up and down the pitch. Hire some out of shape refs for VAR.
MLS has used a single remote facility operated by a third party (originally Hawkeye, now Sportec) for VAR since 2017. My understanding is that Bundesliga does the same (Sportec).
Just saw AC Milan's second and I don't think I've ever seen a defense be so static or stand in one place so much than Real Madrid's for that goal.
Haaland really should have tried to stay humble before that penalty... Great to see Madrid get spanked, Vini gets a nomination for the Fallon D'Floor, City gets humbled.
For anyone who watched Tierry Henry's analysis of Real Madrid's use of Mbappe today on Paramount, I'm curious what you thought regarding what's going on with their attack. With the help of the replay teleprompter, Henry showed several examples where Bellingham was making all the runs that Mbappe should be. At least in his opinion. I thought it was interesting, but at the same time I am neither a tactical analyst, nor an informed observer of Real Madrid's coaching or methods relative to how they are trying to make having Vini, Mbappe and Jude function as a unit. I guess I'm wondering if anyone else thought his analysis was harsh, or naive, or what?
I get why Mbappe opted for Real ($$$$$$) but in reality it was an incredibly stupid move by both he and Real. Mbappe is a LW and Real already has 2 strong LW in Vini & Rodrygo. They do not have a legit CF/ST and are playing Rodrygo or AMs on the right. They have no real balance to their attack. If they were dead set on adding Mbappe, they really should have sold Vini and brought in a legit CF and a young left-footed W to compete/rotate with Rodrygo. While I don't think there was ever a legit way we pay him the wages he would have wanted, Mbappe at Arsenal made significantly more sense with Havertz at CF, Saka on the right and Marti shifting to a backup/spark plug for both wings (and possibly CF).