VAR Discussion Thread | 2024/25

[TheBeautifulGame]

It isn't a penalty.

Why? What are you seeing? What causes it to not be a penalty?

 

[BlueHammer85]

Why? What are you seeing? What causes it to not be a penalty?

That the player made a very good tackle and had that been awarded a penalty it would of been a travesty.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

That the player made a very good tackle and had that been awarded a penalty it would of been a travesty.

A good foot not a good thigh! Have you observed the thigh or did the video glitch make it hard to see? I would kindly ask you again - what made it a very good tackle, was it the foot to the ball? if so, we have been told for years that getting to the ball first isn't important, and now *poof* it is and sends a country to the WC. It is important to look at all elements of the incident.

Namely, do you consider this a dive? Should this player have been booked or was he in fact brought down by the thigh contact? We must get to the bottom of this and understand the criteria that goes into such a decision. If the standard from this is, thigh contact doesn't matter, as long as he gets to the ball first, then this goes against arguments made to the contrary over the years which once again brings to the surface the issue of inconsistency and often randomness to the decisions.

 

[BlueHammer85]

A good foot not a good thigh! Have you observed the thigh or did the video glitch make it hard to see? I would kindly ask you again - what made it a very good tackle, was it the foot to the ball? if so, we have been told for years that getting to the ball first isn't important, and now *poof* it is and sends a country to the WC. It is important to look at all elements of the incident.

Namely, do you consider this a dive? Should this player have been booked or was he in fact brought down by the thigh contact? We must get to the bottom of this and understand the criteria that goes into such a decision. If the standard from this is, thigh contact doesn't matter, as long as he gets to the ball first, then this goes against arguments made to the contrary over the years which once again brings to the surface the issue of inconsistency and often randomness to the decisions.

the contact on the thigh does not bring him down, he gets the ball (and yes you are desperate to make the point that still means it can be a foul) but contact with thigh is minimal timing and split second before he gets the ball. its a good challenge. Not a dive, he goes down after the challenge has been made.
We can go round in circles all day long, the ref had a clear look on the monitor and deemed it not a foul. for a decision of that magnitude i am glad he had the chance of a second look - many refs just take a blind guess decision prior VAR especially with a baying crowd and players diving - If you reckon the contact on the thigh 0.0001 seconds before the contact on the ball makes it a foul and still think Refs should be able to see this in real time and make the correct decision then you must think they have super human powers. they need a second look.
He had a second look, he deemed it a fair challenge, i make him right and justice has been done on this occasion.

 

[wattle]

In order for VAR to reverse an onfield decision, they need to establish evidence of a clear and obvious error supposedly. Watching that replay, while he got to the ball with the foot, the thigh appeared to have clipped him and brought him down. And the decision is to ignore that contact and only look at the foot contacting the ball. Ironically time and time again I have made the argument that getting to the ball first is important, only to be told that it doesn't matter. Now all of a sudden after years and years of arguing that its not about getting to the ball first, now decisions are being reversed based on this concept.

Now I've always stressed the importance of getting to the ball first as an important component to determining if a tackle was a foul via slow motion VAR review. But as others have argued, there are other considerations, so it's not the only part of the decision.

In this case though, we have the referee having tunnel vision at the monitor, ignoring the thigh contact, which brought him down, only focusing on the foot to the ball, and concluding not only was it not a penalty but it was a dive and the player who was brought down was booked. In reality it appeared that he was actually brought down by the thigh contact.

I would also point out that the video feed was glitchy with the slow motion pausing before and after the thigh contact was made, which makes it especially hard to see it in the review. We have a World Cup spot being determined by this situation, a situation that is not as clear as one would think.

You're lauding this as an example of VAR preventing an injustice. I'm not so sure. We know how often the referee reverses his decision when brought to the monitor. As is often the case in these kind of situations, dive paranoia is in play here and the referee has been led, or misled into reversing his onfield decision by omiting a key part of what would go into the decision.

If you do think that this prevented an injustice, then I never want to hear about how getting to the ball first isn't important because that would surely be the justification for reversing such a decision on that argument. But what about the thigh contact? I have seen far too often VAR concluding that a player was diving when the problem is they're just not looking close enough and understanding that even a little bit of contact could bring a player down. I see this as farcical for a World Cup spot to be determined by such a decision in such a way with what appears to be a product of dive paranoia and only focusing on the ball and not the upper leg contact.

Time and time again VAR fails to make the correct decision because it only focuses on what it wants to focus on. The whole of WCQ has been chock full of contentious and controversial VAR decisions. To the point that we can say that the WC field would look completely different if VAR wasn't in play and hasn't been deciding who advances and who doesn't. This is the first WC Qualifying in which VAR has been mandated for all matches. In the last 2 WCs that had VAR, VAR wasn't mandated for the qualifiers and often wasn't used. So this is the first WC qualifiers that we are seeing VAR decisions like this actually choose who goes to the WC or not. It's pretty insane that WC spots are being determined by crazy VAR decisions like this if you ask me.

I honestly wouldn’t waste your time

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

the contact on the thigh does not bring him down, he gets the ball (and yes you are desperate to make the point that still means it can be a foul) but contact with thigh is minimal timing and split second before he gets the ball. its a good challenge. Not a dive, he goes down after the challenge has been made.
We can go round in circles all day long, the ref had a clear look on the monitor and deemed it not a foul. for a decision of that magnitude i am glad he had the chance of a second look - many refs just take a blind guess decision prior VAR especially with a baying crowd and players diving - If you reckon the contact on the thigh 0.0001 seconds before the contact on the ball makes it a foul and still think Refs should be able to see this in real time and make the correct decision then you must think they have super human powers. they need a second look.
He had a second look, he deemed it a fair challenge, i make him right and justice has been done on this occasion.

But isn't VAR only supposed to reverse a decision if there's evidence of a "clear and obvious" error made on the pitch?

You've observed the thigh contact, deemed it to not be significant, but if it's there then it's an element that at the very least would prevent the onfield decision from being a "clear and obvious" error. I brought up the getting to the ball first part of it because presumably the justification for reversing it is seeing that the foot go to the ball before contacting the player. it's just that, what makes it more complicated is the thigh contact and that it came before.

Now you've stated that you do not believe it was a dive or that he should have been booked. Well he was booked following the VAR review, and this is the important part. Logically, the justification for determining that it was a dive would be if he didn't think that there was any thigh contact at all or wasn't aware of it, because if he was then he would have done what you did and deemed it to not be significant, rather than not seeing any contact at all.

To claim a dive, to order a booking, you would presumably not have seen the thigh contact, otherwise you might be able to argue not a penalty but you wouldn't book the player for diving.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Well he was booked following the VAR review, and this is the important part.

are you sure ?

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

are you sure ?

Who was the yellow card given to? The manager? The bench? If the argument is that it wasn't a dive, that there was thigh contact but in your estimation it was minimal, then OK, that's one thing, but if the argument is that you don't think the thigh made contact or you didn't see that, which seems to be the case here with the referee reversing his onfield decision at the monitor, then you would see it as a good tackle and essentially a dive. I mean he went down, he either dived or was brought down. If he was brought down, then it's a penalty, or it's at least not enough to overturn the decision, according to the protocols.

As for the yellow card, I haven't seen a longer video to understand fully what happened, just your clip. I really want to understand what happened here and what went into this. Judging from the reaction from the bench of the reaction, it was clear and obvious that there was immense outrage over the decision.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Who was the yellow card given to? The manager? The bench? If the argument is that it wasn't a dive, that there was thigh contact but in your estimation it was minimal, then OK, that's one thing, but if the argument is that you don't think the thigh made contact or you didn't see that, which seems to be the case here with the referee reversing his onfield decision at the monitor, then you would see it as a good tackle and essentially a dive. I mean he went down, he either dived or was brought down. If he was brought down, then it's a penalty, or it's at least not enough to overturn the decision, according to the protocols.

As for the yellow card, I haven't seen a longer video to understand fully what happened, just your clip. I really want to understand what happened here and what went into this. Judging from the reaction from the bench of the reaction, it was clear and obvious that there was immense outrage over the decision.

You had a massive rant that the player was booked for diving. He wasn’t. Do your homework next time.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

You had a massive rant that the player was booked for diving. He wasn’t. Do your homework next time.

I was reacting to the clip and trying to work out what happened. I saw the yellow card and incorrectly thought he was booked for diving, my mistake. I now see that a yellow card was not given for diving. Apparently the yellow card was given to a Curacao substitute, for celebrating I'm guessing. It is not without reason for me to suspect that it was seen as diving, given the decision to reverse the penalty, given how many times players are accused of diving in situations like that, when in fact contact occurred.

I've made the case that it shouldn't have been overturned due to the thigh contact which appears to have been ignored or missed by the referee. At best it's a subjective decision rather than something that could be argued as a clear and obvious onfield mistake. Realistically, VAR should have seen the thigh contact and confirmed the penalty because that's what brought him down. To reverse that according to the high bar of clear and obvious, you would presumably have to believe that the player was diving. If you didn't, then how could you reverse it? If he didn't dive then he was brought down, which would surely be a penalty, or at least shouldn't justify it being reversed. If there's contact that brought down the player, seen on VAR, as you confirmed, that should be enough to uphold the decision of a penalty. But no, instead we get something else. They don't follow their own rules or the precedent that has been set. They apply whatever criteria they feel like applying on any given day it would seem.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I was reacting to the clip and trying to work out what happened. I saw the yellow card and incorrectly thought he was booked for diving, my mistake. I now see that a yellow card was not given for diving. Apparently the yellow card was given to a Curacao substitute, for celebrating I'm guessing. It is not without reason for me to suspect that it was seen as diving, given the decision to reverse the penalty, given how many times players are accused of diving in situations like that, when in fact contact occurred.

I've made the case that it shouldn't have been overturned due to the thigh contact which appears to have been ignored or missed by the referee. At best it's a subjective decision rather than something that could be argued as a clear and obvious onfield mistake. Realistically, VAR should have seen the thigh contact and confirmed the penalty because that's what brought him down. To reverse that according to the high bar of clear and obvious, you would presumably have to believe that the player was diving. If you didn't, then how could you reverse it? If he didn't dive then he was brought down, which would surely be a penalty, or at least shouldn't justify it being reversed. If there's contact that brought down the player, seen on VAR, as you confirmed, that should be enough to uphold the decision of a penalty. But no, instead we get something else. They don't follow their own rules or the precedent that has been set. They apply whatever criteria they feel like applying on any given day it would seem.

It's a judgement call based on i) the degree of "touch" the defender gets on the ball and ii) the degree of contact with the attacker. Slight touch on the ball, clatter the attacker - penalty, strong touch on the ball, slight contact on the attacker - no penalty.

You clearly still have a bee in your bonnet about the incident last year with Silva. That was a "very slight touch on the ball, strong enough contact on the attacker" scenario. This one was a strong touch on the ball, slight contact on the attacker. Both justifiable interpretations based on how the rules have been interpreted for years.

Once again, it isn't simply the fact the defender touches the ball that determines the offence or non-offence, it's taking the two actions, touch on ball and contact with the attacker into account.

Unless you are an idiot football pundit, the "I got the ball, ref" argument went out of football with the ark. And quite bloody rightly.

Stop making me agree with @BlueHammer85 . I hate it :(

As for the use of VAR, the referee probably said he didn't see any touch on the ball and the VAR said there was a strong enough touch to reconsider. In that case, the VAR involvement corrected a referee mistake, it didn't reconsider a subjective assessment. At least, that is what they will say if asked.