VAR Discussion Thread | 2024/25

Why is VAR allowing interference on the goal keeper from corners? The top two teams in goals scored from set pieces Palace and Arsenal do it all the time.
 
My biggest complaint about VAR has been fans inside the ground being left in the dark. Today was a huge improvement seeing the semi automated images on the screen relatively quickly and the explanation shortly after.
 
My biggest complaint about VAR has been fans inside the ground being left in the dark. Today was a huge improvement seeing the semi automated images on the screen relatively quickly and the explanation shortly after.
I must have been asleep! There was no images when I was looking. I did see the stupid announcement that Var agreed with the ref but as the match had restarted it was pointless.
 
I must have been asleep! There was no images when I was looking. I did see the stupid announcement that Var agreed with the ref but as the match had restarted it was pointless.

Are you angry that offsides potentially look like they’re being given a lot quicker and more accuracy?
 
I must have been asleep! There was no images when I was looking. I did see the stupid announcement that Var agreed with the ref but as the match had restarted it was pointless.
They definitely showed the semi automated images on the big screens and highlighted the body parts of the defending and attacking players. It then showed a virtual offside wall. I thought it was very clear and informative.

They also gave a brief explanation e.g. Goal disallowed, Eze offside. Followed by a tweet a minute later.
 
They definitely showed the semi automated images on the big screens and highlighted the body parts of the defending and attacking players. It then showed a virtual offside wall. I thought it was very clear and informative.

They also gave a brief explanation e.g. Goal disallowed, Eze offside. Followed by a tweet a minute later.

Yeh but …. Can we just be angry about it anyway?
 
They definitely showed the semi automated images on the big screens and highlighted the body parts of the defending and attacking players. It then showed a virtual offside wall. I thought it was very clear and informative.

They also gave a brief explanation e.g. Goal disallowed, Eze offside. Followed by a tweet a minute later.
I must have been abusing either the ref (kept getting in the way) a Palace player (kept fouling ours) the ref (for not booking the palace player.)

Edit: a tweet ! A fucking tweet !
 
Offside decision for Arsenals goal very quick, looking promising this automation.
It took about a minute and a half from whistle to whistle. That's a minute longer than it would have been without VAR. It was very clear that he was offsides when watching in real-time, so we didn't need VAR or SAOT to confirm that one. Yet we still lost about a minute of football.

We can't judge SAOT on situations like that, since it was very clear that he was off even to the naked eye. Lets see some more borderline situations where SAOT gets involved to see how well it does when it's actually useful and could be an improvement.
 
It took about a minute and a half from whistle to whistle. That's a minute longer than it would have been without VAR. It was very clear that he was offsides when watching in real-time, so we didn't need VAR or SAOT to confirm that one. Yet we still lost about a minute of football.

We can't judge SAOT on situations like that, since it was very clear that he was off even to the naked eye. Lets see some more borderline situations where SAOT gets involved to see how well it does when it's actually useful and could be an improvement.

Of course reason to remain skeptical of any new implementation to the game, I’m sure there will be some hiccups soon enough, but the 2 offsides I saw today against City and Brentford were swiftly ruled out without the need for VAR officials to make lines and have a long chat - they were conclusive and very fast. Deffo some optimism.
 
Literally gone full circle. Now with automation replacing VAR it takes seconds to make a decision, which is what it was before VAR when it was the ref. (And VAR still made incorrect calls!). Nice to see some progress.
On the Palace disallowed goal, it was plainly visible that he was just off when watching in real-time. Yet we still had to suffer through a delay for what we already knew was going to be confirmed, and for the pro-VAR people to celebrate this delay and pointless diversion as some sort of success. Pre-VAR the flag goes up right away, free kick to City, no delay, on with the match.

Only now we had to suffer through play being allowed to continue and to see Palace score (fraudulently) only to then have to wait for it to be "corrected". That didn't need correction as it was clear as day to the naked eye. Yet the lino still didn't put the flag up immediately as he would Pre-VAR, which created a needless delay. As I've said before, VAR or SAOT can never be better than the lino being allowed to accurately make the decision in real-time. And if he's genuinely not sure, if it's too close to call, then he can let it continue, as it were pre-VAR generally as the benefit of the doubt was understood to go to the attacker in genuinely too close to be sure situations, if he was "about" in line with defender you let play go, and in THAT scenario then you could use SAOT to confirm after the fact, if a goal was subsequently scored. And if a goal wasn't scored, then it probably doesn't even get looked at and play continues (fraudulently as it were).

But what we have now is situations like the Palace phantom 3rd goal and the header in the Arsenal match that pre-VAR would have been flagged right away and play restarted within 30 seconds, in the Palace case the whistle would have been blown before he got near the goal. That ball would never have hit the back of the net pre-VAR because City would already be lining up for a free kick.

Gone forever (seemingly) are quick kicks following offsides since they can (apparently) never happen anymore.

When it's clear as day like in both the Palace 3rd goal against City and for the Arsenal header, SAOT is useless and redundant. There are cases when SAOT can be a benefit, but we have yet to see a scenario in which it has proven worthwhile yet. And I'll give credit if I see a situation where it works and is quicker. But we're not there yet, so lets not laud what happened today as some kind of proof that it works or is of any benefit.
 
Of course reason to remain skeptical of any new implementation to the game, I’m sure there will be some hiccups soon enough, but the 2 offsides I saw today against City and Brentford were swiftly ruled out without the need for VAR officials to make lines and have a long chat - they were conclusive and very fast. Deffo some optimism.
Both situations were already "ruled out" on the pitch by the linesman, only you would never know since they're not allowed to put their flag up when they see it. The linos decisions were merely confirmed after a 1-2 minute SAOT delay to confirm what we already knew. Not to mention the additional time of Palace being allowed to score their non-goal because play has to be allowed to continue so VAR can then check, and potentially revert back to the continued play segment if indeed he is determined to be on after the fact, which is a exceedingly rare event. No VAR generally is only there to rule out goals if they happen, in situation when play should have already been stopped, the fatal flaw to VAR/SAOT trying to adjudicate offsides rather than real-time via the lino.

Anotherwords, what happened on this match day were two self-fulfilling prophecies of SAOT merely confirming what we could see clear as day on the pitch, only City fans had to suffer through the unnecessary controversy of Palace being allowed to score and some fans hearts sinking thinking the match might be over at that stage. We didn't need to go through that momentary heartbreak, and we wouldn't have pre-VAR.

We didn't need VAR or SAOT to correct that, the lino could see that just fine in real-time. Don't get me wrong, as much as I can't stand VAR, there are the rare (it would seem) situation where SAOT could be a benefit, but at what cost??

At the cost of endless situations throughout the year of play being allowed to continue when we can see plainly that a man was clearly off, and then for goals to be *sometimes* scored as a result, or for goals not to be scored and then for play to be allowed to continue anyway (even if SAOT then confirms he was off, if a goal wasn't scored as a result, they then have to decide whether to stop the match and bring it back to a free kick).

Even if SAOT shaves off a minute or two in the rare instance of a VAR review that corrects or confirms a genuinely "too close to call" situation that the lino can't be sure in real-time so he lets play (correctly) continue, putting such an instance up against all the times when offsides was clearly seen but the lino keeps his flag down and we have to suffer through pointless delays and controversies as a result of him keeping his flag down, it's not worth it.

I'm even bothered by the fact that there's a sensor in the ball that emits frequencies during the match. The ball should be completely natural in every way. I'm just a traditionalist I supposed by I find all this technology to be unnatural and dystopian. But to each his own, Hammer. I know you like it and you want to be optimistic about it. I can respect that and I will try to be fair moving forward. But nothing that happened on this match day did anything to validate its worth.
 
Of course reason to remain skeptical of any new implementation to the game, I’m sure there will be some hiccups soon enough, but the 2 offsides I saw today against City and Brentford were swiftly ruled out without the need for VAR officials to make lines and have a long chat - they were conclusive and very fast. Deffo some optimism.
Miles better and quicker. The fact that it’s accurate because you get an exact moment when the ball was kicked makes all the difference.
 
Miles better and quicker. The fact that it’s accurate because you get an exact moment when the ball was kicked makes all the difference.
Look, anything is better than drawing lines. And shortening the time in which a VAR offside check takes is a good thing. But until we start seeing SAOT in action in situations of "congestion" inside the box or in situations that happen *genuinely* too fast for us (or the lino) to see in real-time in which the SAOT shows its worth, we need to tailor our expectations and our conclusions to each situation.

I'm still not sold on the "exact moment when the ball is kicked" problem. Apparently some SAOT cameras are 50fps while some others are 100fps. I'm not sure how the varying fps cameras are parsed to determine the exact moment the ball is kicked with any certainty or if there could be glitches to this. Apparently everything the technology puts out still requires human confirmation, and with such small margins and the clock ticking, it would be hard to imagine a scenario of a human VAR operator seeing the exact moment that the technology spits out and deciding to not confirm what the technology puts out unless it's a glaring error that sticks out. That said, I fully expect to SAOT to be somewhat embraced as an improvement to drawling lines generally.

But you still have the persistent problem of linos letting play continue far too often and having to endure pointless delays that will far exceed the amount of times that SAOT actually proves itself useful. There will be situations, maybe once or twice a month, maybe even more, that pro-VAR people will point to of close situations that shows SAOT working and being a benefit, but even so, considering the cost of all the technology and all the pointless delays to essentially "test" the system during matches to confirm what could already be seen with the naked eye, I maintain that it will remain a net negative.
 
Look, anything is better than drawing lines. And shortening the time in which a VAR offside check takes is a good thing. But until we start seeing SAOT in action in situations of "congestion" inside the box or in situations that happen *genuinely* too fast for us (or the lino) to see in real-time in which the SAOT shows its worth, we need to tailor our expectations and our conclusions to each situation.

I'm still not sold on the "exact moment when the ball is kicked" problem. Apparently some SAOT cameras are 50fps while some others are 100fps. I'm not sure how the varying fps cameras are parsed to determine the exact moment the ball is kicked with any certainty or if there could be glitches to this. Apparently everything the technology puts out still requires human confirmation, and with such small margins and the clock ticking, it would be hard to imagine a scenario of a human VAR operator seeing the exact moment that the technology spits out and deciding to not confirm what the technology puts out unless it's a glaring error that sticks out. That said, I fully expect to SAOT to be somewhat embraced as an improvement to drawling lines generally.

But you still have the persistent problem of linos letting play continue far too often and having to endure pointless delays that will far exceed the amount of times that SAOT actually proves itself useful. There will be situations, maybe once or twice a month, maybe even more, that pro-VAR people will point to of close situations that shows SAOT working and being a benefit, but even so, considering the cost of all the technology and all the pointless delays to essentially "test" the system during matches to confirm what could already be seen with the naked eye, I maintain that it will remain a net negative.
Mate I totally hate VAR. I’d scrap it now if it was my choice. It takes away all the instant joy of a goal and stops refs making decisions. Now 4 people are fucking up rather than 1. It’s honestly ruined the match going experience for me so much that I actually avoid going now. I probably go to 5-10 games a season instead of 15-20. I was just saying that the automated offside is better/quicker than some fuckwhit drawing lines and deciding when the ball was kicked depending on who he wants to win
 
Miles better and quicker. The fact that it’s accurate because you get an exact moment when the ball was kicked makes all the difference.

The kick point is still manually locked in by the VAR. I don’t think there’s any significant change in that part of the process.
 
Oh!!!! I thought there was

Been trying to find where I read it but can’t remember where it was now. Almost certain that’s the case though.

What I did 100% read, is unlike any other league or competition that has switched to SAOT, the Premier League have built in their 5cm tolerance level to the attacker, that they used in the previous system.
 

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