VAR and that disallowed goal

guitars4you

The disallowed goal Man City v Spurs - Not dissimilar to the previous week Wolves v Leicester

Many are in favour of VAR, but few if any would have expected such a goal, as last night, to be chalked off for hand ball - Pre VAR and I date say that not 1 ref would have disallowed that goal for a slight hand to ball incident

It is not the fault of VAR, as they are only showing what they see - It is the fault of the directive issued to VAR, that any handball, no matter how 'accidental/minimal and the goal can't stand - So accepting this, does that mean like wise that any such minimal hand to ball contact, by the defending side, now has to be a penalty - So effectively zero tolerance in the penalty area regarding hand ball

I dare say in the grand scheme of things it will probably equal itself out over the season - But my believe is that VAR is there to correct or advise on obvious incidents/errors - 'Maradona hand of God' as an example - Not to look with microscopic detail to see if the attackers big toe is offside and look at it 4/5/6 times before making a decision - In fact I believe the directive should be that if you can't see an obvious error on VAR on 1st or 2nd viewing, then leave as per the on-field decision and continue as is

joeyowen

As a United fan, I'm a big fan of VAR (see PSG, or Spurs City in the CL, such lols!) 

However, yesterday it was strange.  Yes the goal should have been disallowed (according the law), but why weren't city awarded the penalty in the first half?  I thought it was pretty clear cut.

If I'm being a bit cynical, I imagine the PL are loving all the extra news coverage about it.  It will no doubt improve the overall fairness of the game, but it will not totally remove some subjective things (such as the penalty yesterday).

guitars4you

joeyowen said:

As a United fan, I'm a big fan of VAR (see PSG, or Spurs City in the CL, such lols!) 

However, yesterday it was strange.  Yes the goal should have been disallowed (according the law), but why weren't city awarded the penalty in the first half?  I thought it was pretty clear cut.

If I'm being a bit cynical, I imagine the PL are loving all the extra news coverage about it.  It will no doubt improve the overall fairness of the game, but it will not totally remove some subjective things (such as the penalty yesterday).

agree it is easy to be both vindictive towards another teams 'miss-fortune' and tribal towards your own - I dare say if we kept a league table of such incidents, it will, or should be fairly level at the end of the season

Agree that the foul in the box by Spurs was clumsy and a penalty should have been awarded - But somehow such incidents are still a matter of 'opinion' with many far less clear cut - But that hand ball is clear cut, based on a 'zero tolerance rule book' but somehow wrong, certainly based on goals scored in the past 

RaymondLin

VAR doesn't change what happened.  Without VAR we would still be watching replays on MoTD and the arguing over it regardless.

VAR just allows the officials to apply the law within the game before the final whistle.  Without VAR you can make all the laws that you like, if you can't spot it then the law can't be applied.

Now the law for handball has changed from the more ambiguous versions that we have previously to simply black and white.  Hit the arm, no goal.  Everyone has to follow it, so eventually it will be your turn.  

VAR allows that rule to be implemented.

No arguments, nothing.   So not sure why some people are so upset about it.

For the penalty, that they should really be looked at, not sure why it wasn't, perhaps fouls like that require the ref to ask VAR to check first?  Like he ask the linesman to confirm whether it was offside or spotted a foul before.

joeyowen

RaymondLin said:

For the penalty, that they should really be looked at, not sure why it wasn't, perhaps fouls like that require the ref to ask VAR to check first?  Like he ask the linesman to confirm whether it was offside or spotted a foul before.

I might be wrong, but I thought the ref was pointing at his ear when saying no pen, meaning he had been told by VAR.  Which almost makes it more strange, because it really was a pen by the letter of the law.  So how did VAR not award it?  Or was the ref (Michael Oliver) making excuses (most people in my social circle find him a twat and spineless)

Overall though, I am in favour of it and think it is long long lonnnngg overdue (much like Goal Line technology) 

EricTheWeary

The rule is a bit daft though, the ball accidentally hits an arm two or three hits before a goal is scored. There is still ambiguity there, how far do you go back. Had the ball accidentally hit a defender's arm no penalty which would be the equal and opposite reaction. 
I'm not against VAR but these decisions are nonsense. 

guitars4you

EricTheWeary said:

The rule is a bit daft though, the ball accidentally hits an arm two or three hits before a goal is scored. There is still ambiguity there, how far do you go back. Had the ball accidentally hit a defender's arm no penalty which would be the equal and opposite reaction. 
I'm not against VAR but these decisions are nonsense. 

Agree - From what I can gather, VAR can't be used to see if it is hand ball outside the box within the build up 

Does anyone now know if such a hand ball incident is now 100% a penalty, assuming it touched a defenders arm - ie zero tolerance both ways on what is almost negligible handball and certainly not intentional

Yesterday not one Spurs player appealed - They look as though they had accepted the goal and a potential defeat 

Agree with you @RaymondLin that VAR makes the rules definitive - My point was more about is this version of VAR what football fans thought they had requested, and/@ ;

Interesting thought going back towards the end of last season and PSG v Man U and that penalty for Man U - A shot hit the players arm so a penalty awarded, but a ball tracker (as in cricket) would have shown the ball was heading to the top tier of the stands - So effectively VAR turned a poor shot into a goal scoring chance - Rules are still applicable I know, but somehow it doesn't sit right 

scrumhalf

The new variations in the handball law are ridiculous, and I say that as a Spurs fan whose team has had the good and bad end of it. If the player uses his hand to control the ball that should be handball. It worked for years and I don't recall many matches in the 60s, 70s and 80s being marred by that rule.

As for VAR, it's a bit half-arsed at the moment. If you are judging things to the extent that a player can be offside if he's not cut his fingernails that morning then you must be doing it using a technology that allows all aspects of the incident to be determined with equal detail.

What is needed is something like circket's umpire's call. There are things going on that cannot be determined by a video camera of the sort used at football matches. When is the ball played by a player? When contact is first made by foot onto ball or just as contact ceases? The typical camera cannot determine that from such a distance.

But the most serious problem is one of language. Do we pronounce it "vee-ay-arr" or "var"? We need a working party to determine this. And if we choose the latter then commentators must be required to say that, as a VAR decision is being made, that the ref has varted.

AustrianJohn

scrumhalf said:

The new variations in the handball law are ridiculous

Agreed. For an accidental handball to be an offence if one thing happens a few seconds later and not be an offence if something different happens is silly.

If I'm a defender and the ball accidentally strikes my arm in my own penalty area, no penalty is given because it's accidental. If I then kick the ball upfield resulting in a goal being scored, does my handball result in a penalty to the opposition?

EricTheWeary

AustrianJohn said:

scrumhalf said:

The new variations in the handball law are ridiculous

Agreed. For an accidental handball to be an offence if one thing happens a few seconds later and not be an offence if something different happens is silly.

Absolutely. 

I was trying to think of that example of a goal being scored by the ball bouncing off debris thrown onto the pitch. It's not supposed to happen but it did, there is a lot of football played and all sorts of stuff happens that needs to be decided in the moment by the ref and not five minutes later. I think they should bring back stray dogs running on. 

Roysterdoyster

I don’t like VAR at all. As a liverpool fan, we have benefitted from it (like when spurs beat city in the UCL semi)....but as someone above points out, it will probably even itself up over a season, but didn’t that happen when it was just the ref? 

The penalties being retaken in the women’s World Cup because the keeper was a negligible amout off their line, and Agueros being retaken for encroachment. Yes technically the right decision if the laws are implemented, but I just don’t think VAR should be calling those types of infringements. I don’t know the ideal solution and I’m sure VAR will evolve for the better, but I’d like to see a similar set up to tennis/cricket...ie; give each team say 3 chances to use VAR in a match and it’s purely the captains call as to whether to use it or not. If he’s proved right the team still retains 3 challenges, if wrong the team have only two left.

joeyowen

EricTheWeary said:

AustrianJohn said:

scrumhalf said:

The new variations in the handball law are ridiculous

Agreed. For an accidental handball to be an offence if one thing happens a few seconds later and not be an offence if something different happens is silly.

Absolutely. 

I was trying to think of that example of a goal being scored by the ball bouncing off debris thrown onto the pitch. It's not supposed to happen but it did, there is a lot of football played and all sorts of stuff happens that needs to be decided in the moment by the ref and not five minutes later. I think they should bring back stray dogs running on. 

Ahhhh the beach ball goal 

thecolourbox

I quite like it to be honest. And whether the new hand ball rules are ridiculous or not will be presumably evaluated as the season progresses but they are the rules, so players and managers have to respect that and challenge it through the right channels.

It won't matter to me as my team won't be back in the premier for a good while (West Brom) but I remember when we were there so many goals scored against us that on the MOTD highlights looked perfectly fine, but if they'd picked up the footage 30 seconds earlier they'd have seen a free kick not given or a throw in given the wrong way that seemed innocuous but then the other team would go from there straight up the other end and score.

At least in the Championship we can remove any theory of bias in the refs, as the refs in the championship are incompetent in every direction, not favouring any teams

earwighoney

Roysterdoyster said:

I don’t like VAR at all. As a liverpool fan, we have benefitted from it (like when spurs beat city in the UCL semi)....but as someone above points out, it will probably even itself up over a season, but didn’t that happen when it was just the ref? 

The penalties being retaken in the women’s World Cup because the keeper was a negligible amout off their line, and Agueros being retaken for encroachment. Yes technically the right decision if the laws are implemented, but I just don’t think VAR should be calling those types of infringements. 

The encrouchment issue in the women's World Cup and also for keepers leaving their lines too early seemed incredibly harsh. 

VAR will take time to be refined, and there will be hiccups along the way.  I might be alone but I think the rule for any ball coming off a hand intentional or unintentional to be a handball is a good one as even though there will be some potential areas of confusion it will be a little less confusing in the long run, eg Thierry Henry's handball to take France in the WC at the expense of Ireland will be taken away from the game. 

thecolourbox

Yes indeed. And also the encroaching thing - wouldn't be an issue if players didn't do it, and that is the rule so why shouldn't it be enforced?

Neil

Don't like it.

It takes the fluidity out of the game. Football was about the only game that wasn't stopped for video replays etc etc and now it is you can't cheer a goal until it has been assessed by some bloke sitting miles away on a screen?

It takes all the talking points out of the game also. No more debating in the pub if it was a pen, foul, free kick etc etc. We'll soon have a great big clock that stops when the ball is dead like the NFL.

Football wasn't meant to be played like that. It's bad enough in Cricket.

joeyowen

Here's another one:

With UEFA, the keeper cannot leave his line before the ball is kicked.  However this was the Penalty that Adrian saved in the super cup final to win it for Liverpool:



So why didn't VAR say it should be retaken?  

It just strikes me as inconsistent.

UnclePsychosis

The new handball rule is absolutely ludicrous. If that ball had struck a defender's arm then its not a foul, but hitting an attacker's arm and it is? An absolute nonsense. 

VAR is a slightly different issue (although that new handball rule has obviously been created with VAR in mind)---as far as I'm concerned VAR can get in the bin.

Arguing/debating over refereeing decisions has always been (a very enjoyable) part of the game and the fact that fans seem to have been duped into accepting VAR despite it being clearly to the detriment of the fan experience is yet another reason to get turned off elite football in 2019. VAR has utterly killed any kind of spontaneity amongst the people who have paid to watch the game - get it to fuck ASAP please.

By all means use video evidence to retrospectively punish cheats but football as a live spectator experience is being absolutely wrecked by this nonsensical belief that subjective decisions can ever achieve a 100% success rate. 

alalalkasar

The new handball rule simplifies the var process, you can watch a thousand replays but they will never show intent. The new rule
removes interpretation, it's either handball or not. Removing interpretation is supposed to remove any controversy from the decision.

RaymondLin

UnclePsychosis said:

The new handball rule is absolutely ludicrous. If that ball had struck a defender's arm then its not a foul, but hitting an attacker's arm and it is? An absolute nonsense. 

VAR is a slightly different issue (although that new handball rule has obviously been created with VAR in mind)---as far as I'm concerned VAR can get in the bin.

Arguing/debating over refereeing decisions has always been (a very enjoyable) part of the game and the fact that fans seem to have been duped into accepting VAR despite it being clearly to the detriment of the fan experience is yet another reason to get turned off elite football in 2019. VAR has utterly killed any kind of spontaneity amongst the people who have paid to watch the game - get it to fuck ASAP please.

By all means use video evidence to retrospectively punish cheats but football as a live spectator experience is being absolutely wrecked by this nonsensical belief that subjective decisions can ever achieve a 100% success rate. 

I think the Man U vs PSG game proves that striking the defender’s arm is a foul, hence they got a penalty. So it seems to be consistent in that respect.

People still argue about it now, we are doing it right here....VAR doesn’t stop that.

earwighoney

UnclePsychosis said:

The new handball rule is absolutely ludicrous. If that ball had struck a defender's arm then its not a foul, but hitting an attacker's arm and it is? An absolute nonsense. 

I think, I'm not sure but it's any time the ball hits the hand intentional or not it's a foul.  It doesn't matter whether it's the hand of a defender or an attacker. 

Copied from the BBC site

"The law remains that deliberate handball is an offence. But accidental handball will also be a free-kick (or penalty if inside the penalty area)"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49388102