PL ref officiating the play off game tonight, no Var, misses as clear a penalty as you will see then later awards a penalty when there was no contact. 2 key decisions, both wrong.
The one area that VAR could possibly be a legitimate help is as it pertains to penalty decisions. But it's a very slippery slope, as we've seen. I'll be the first to admit that there are *some* situations in which VAR has corrected faulty penalty decision given on the pitch. A good example is in the Brighton & Hove Albion match against Chelsea.
Watch the clip on youtube : See 0:16 - 1:11 in the video.
The tackle by Facundo Buonanotte in the box on Cucurella, a penalty was given by the referee, as the referee did not have a good angle to see the slide tackle clearly. He sees Cucurella come down and gives a penalty, Buonanotte is apoplectic because he knows he made a great tackle, and he did. The reverse angle shows a much clearer view than the referee had, and you can see from the reverse angle that Buonanotte got to the ball first. It was a great tackle, and upon the VAR review, the decision was reversed, and no penalty was given.
Now, you could say, this kind of situation is exactly what VAR is for and why we have it. However, this is what I would say to that. While I agree it was a great tackle, and he got to the ball first, if you watch it closely, there was a lot of jostling back and forth between Buonanotte and Cucurella prior to the play on the ball. Buonanotte first pressed his elbow against Cucurella's shoulder then Buonanotte pushed his hand firmly against Cucurella's stomach prior to making the great slide tackle. Now, you could argue that Buonanotte committed a foul in the penalty area by putting his hand on the stomach of Cucurella which seemed to give him the leverage to get into position to successfully make the slide tackle to begin with. If he didn't use his hands prior to making the slide tackle, would he have been able to get out in front like that and get the ball first before bringing him down? I'm not sure that he would have been able to make that kind of tackle without the pushing off with his hands.
What I'm saying is that, while it was clear that he made a great slide tackle, got to the ball before bringing down Cucurella, which resulted in the penalty being overturned, his putting his hands on Cucurella prior to the slide tackle was still arguably a foul. Now you might say, well they both were using their hands, but that's subjective and there's a definite argument that Buonanotte was only able to make that successful slide tackle by using his hands against the upper body of Cucurella to get him into position to get to the ball on that slide tackle. That said, I have no problem with that call being reversed, and that this situation is about as good of an argument to have VAR as there is. But what I'm saying is, even then, there's still an argument that it could have been a penalty due to the jostling and putting his hands on his upper body prior to the slide tackle. But again, that's debatable, and I'm not making the argument that it should have been a penalty. I'm fine with that being overturned, all I'm saying is it's still somewhat arguable as a penalty due to the hands on his upper body prior to the slide tackle. (which unsurprisingly no one's talking about)
But onto a larger issue, what makes this situation a good argument for having VAR is that, this was a situation in which a penalty was given on the pitch, which means that continuity had already been stopped by that penalty decision. Also, the ball was kicked out of play for a corner on the slide tackle, so in the event that a penalty wasn't given upon a VAR review, you could go right to a corner kick since it would have been out on Buonanotte. So no matter what decision VAR made there, no continuity would have been lost either way. It's either a corner to Chelsea or a penalty to Chelsea.
However, what I'm trying to point out here is that, a situation like that in which no continuity would be lost upon a VAR review for penalty / no pen is exceedingly rare!!
If a penalty is given on a situation in which the ball did not go out of play on a slide tackle like that, lets say there was just a foul inside the box, penalty given and the ball was still in play when the ref made that decision, if a VAR review ends up determining no pen, you've then lost the natural continuity that would have occurred had the play been allowed continue. (similar to what I described for ALL offsides situations)
What I would say about VAR and penalty decisions, is that there is a legitimate argument that in *some* situations in which a penalty is given, that it's worth it for the referee to go to the monitor after a penalty decision is given on the field. But as I pointed out, unless the ball went out of play right as the penalty was given on the pitch (like on a situation like the slide tackle by Buonanotte) you're still losing the continuity upon a reversal of no pen.
Now, there's an argument that losing the continuity even if the ball stayed in play and penalty was incorrectly given on the pitch and reversed upon review is better than giving a penalty incorrectly. And to that, I would agree. However, we must keep in mind that we're still losing continuity in most cases, even if a pen / no pen is correctly reversed upon a VAR review. And lets take opposite case, which
unlike when a pen is given incorrectly on the pitch then reversed upon a VAR review, if a penalty is missed, then a foul is observed and play is stopped unnaturally to review, then similar to
all offsides VAR reviews, you are guaranteed to lose continuity even if the VAR review correctly sees a penalty and decides to give a penalty.
This is the problem, in that, yes, occasionally there's a seemingly perfect VAR example like the Buonanotte / Cucurella slide tackle in which it seemed as if VAR corrected a missed call on the pitch, and it just so happened that due to the slide tackle going out for a corner kick, you ended up not losing any continuity. However, that kind of situation in which you don't lose continuity upon a VAR review for a pen / no pen is exceedingly rare, and even if a penalty was given and VAR wasn't there to correct it according to the slide tackle, there's still an argument that it could have been a penalty due to the jostling prior to the slide tackle and Buonanotte all over Cucurella's upper body which arguable allowed him to make such a great slide tackle to begin with.
What I would say to those who say don't bin VAR, just improve it, is, if VAR only intervened on situations like that, in which a player was brought down in the box, and a ref gives a penalty. With play already stopped due to the decision, to take a look to see another angle, I would say generally that's probably a benefit to the game, as it sometimes would correct a missed view of a slide tackle like that from the ref.
However, as I pointed out, these types of situations are exceedingly rare when VAR intervenes to correct a situation like that. But I would say that it's better when VAR intervenes for a penalty that was already given on the pitch, as that causes the match to be stopped in preparation for the PK, which is a good time for the play to be reviewed, since the match had already been stopped naturally by the on field referee giving a penalty . . . rather than a potential penalty that was missed by the referee, and then for the match to be unnaturally stopped to review a potential penalty. Then, like for all offsides decision as I mentioned earlier, regardless of if they get the call correct, and see a penalty they may have missed, they've already broken the natural continuity of the match. No matter what they decide upon a VAR review at that point (i.e. lets say they uphold the decision on the pitch of no pen) you've already lost the run of play as it was occurring naturally before you stopped the match to review, and
you can never get that back.
So what I'm pointing out here is that VAR (in most cases, aside from the
rare Buonanotte / Cucurella type of situation where a pen was given on the pitch and the ball was kicked out of play on the slide tackle) you're always disrupting the natural flow of the match to stop the match for VAR. You can never resume it as it was with a free kick given, as opposed to whatever was happening when a match was stopped. You can never get that back is the point here, which is why it's far too disruptive to the natural order of a match, to the natural flow of the match, even if a VAR decision gets it right and corrects a call on the pitch. In most cases, you've still lost the continuity and what would have happened had VAR not gotten involved no matter what.