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.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

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.

I understand your reasoning and that's a fair assessment however as you've pointed out, it comes down to a judgement (subjective) decision rather than something that was clear and obvious. That's the same argument that I was making. That it wasn't a clear or obvious mistake on the pitch, so therefore, according to VAR's own protocols, VAR isn't supposed to "intervene".

Intervene meaning, as I was told, apparently doesn't mean whether or not they decide to go to review, intervene as I was told means whether they decide to change the onfield decision following a review.

So as such they didn't have enough to intervene here, since there are two elements to this - the foot to the ball (which on its own would be a good tackle) and the upper leg contact which brought him down.

There was enough contact with the upper thigh that would surely justify staying with the onfield decision. I mean, if you make a clean tackle on the ball but you collide with a player somewhere else on his body, it's still a foul. What we have here is a tunnel vision situation where the referee is not really making a decision, he's merely been guided to a decision, told what to look at etc.

The fact is that, the player didn't dive here, he was certainly brought down by the thigh contact which should be a foul. Only focusing on the foot and ignoring the contact with the upper leg is corrupt, because it only focuses on one of two elements of the play.

So this is a judgement call, a subjective decision, with a clean foot tackle and contact with the thigh, rather than something clear or obvious that would warrant reversing the call on the field.

Your last paragraph highlights a large flaw with VAR is that they can adjust how they interpret the criteria in order to arrive at whatever decision they want.

The logic here might be, like you said, the ref said he didn't see the touch on the ball and used that as the something he "missed" when in reality he's just saying that and that is only a component of the overall decision. Then again the touch wouldn't have been too hard to see so I'm not sure I'm buying that, but lets say it's true.

Think about how flawed this decision-making is by taking another example. Lets say a defender elbowed a player in the head as he was making a good touch on the ball. Lets say he ruled a penalty on the pitch. But according to you, the ref could go to the monitor and claim he he didn't see the touch, and then conclude that it wasn't a penalty, completely ignoring the elbow, because the touch is what he claimed he missed?

Don't you see how problematic this is? If the ref truly missed something, it needs to relate to the overall decision, not just one component of the incident while ignoring another.

So again this is one of these that you could misconstrue the situation to do what the ref at the monitor did, but it's a highly corrupt highly debatable decision, given the thigh contact. Would you not agree that the thigh contact is enough by itself to uphold the decision of a pen?

Why is what the ref might claim to miss (the touch on the ball) if that's in fact what he claimed more important than the accuracy of the overall decision?

We've been been critical of VAR and my argument is simply that the contact with the high is enough to warrant a penalty, and as such, there was definitely not enough to claim that he made a clear or obvious error, as in the decision of the penalty itself. If there are multiple parts to the decision, then the ref claiming to miss only one part of it while completely ignoring the other is wrong. And again, if you personally don't believe that the contact with the thigh is enough, that's an argument but it's not enough to change the onfield decision. Whether or not the ref made a clear or obvious mistake has to do with the decision itself, not merely one specific component of it. If he missed a part of it, that doesn't stop him from also looking at the other parts that would go into a decision.

For that decision to be overturned to a no pen, for me you can't have any of that thigh contact, because the thigh contact is enough by itself to warrant a penalty, and with the penalty given on the pitch, would need evidence that this contact didn't occur in order to reverse the decision, according to their own standards and protocols.

All that said, I have no problem with you or Hammer personally deciding that the thigh contact wasn't that significant, but the clear and obvious part of the decision on the pitch being wrong has not been satisfied here.

 

[BlueHammer85]

I understand your reasoning and that's a fair assessment however as you've pointed out, it comes down to a judgement (subjective) decision rather than something that was clear and obvious. That's the same argument that I was making. That it wasn't a clear or obvious mistake on the pitch, so therefore, according to VAR's own protocols, VAR isn't supposed to "intervene".

Intervene meaning, as I was told, apparently doesn't mean whether or not they decide to go to review, intervene as I was told means whether they decide to change the onfield decision following a review.

So as such they didn't have enough to intervene here, since there are two elements to this - the foot to the ball (which on its own would be a good tackle) and the upper leg contact which brought him down.

There was enough contact with the upper thigh that would surely justify staying with the onfield decision. I mean, if you make a clean tackle on the ball but you collide with a player somewhere else on his body, it's still a foul. What we have here is a tunnel vision situation where the referee is not really making a decision, he's merely been guided to a decision, told what to look at etc.

The fact is that, the player didn't dive here, he was certainly brought down by the thigh contact which should be a foul. Only focusing on the foot and ignoring the contact with the upper leg is corrupt, because it only focuses on one of two elements of the play.

So this is a judgement call, a subjective decision, with a clean foot tackle and contact between the thigh, rather than something clear or obvious that would warrant reversing the call on the field.

Your last paragraph highlights a large flaw with VAR is that they can adjust how they interpret the criteria in order to arrive at whatever decision they want.

The logic here might be, like you said, the ref said he didn't see the touch on the ball and used that as the something he "missed" when in reality he's just saying that and that is only a component of the overall decision. Then again the touch wouldn't have been too hard to see so I'm not sure I'm buying that, but lets say it's true.

Think about how flawed this decision-making is by taking another example. Lets say a defender elbowed a player in the head as he was making a good touch on the ball. Lets say he ruled a penalty on the pitch. But according to you, the ref could go to the monitor and claim he he didn't see the touch, and then conclude that it wasn't a penalty, completely ignoring the elbow, because the touch is what he claimed he missed?

Don't you see how problematic this is? If the ref truly missed something, it needs to relate to the overall decision, not just one component of the incident while ignoring another.

So again this is one of these that you could misconstrue the situation to do what the ref at the monitor did, but it's a highly corrupt highly debatable decision, given the thigh contact. Would you not agree that the thigh contact is enough by itself to uphold the decision of a pen?

Why is what the ref might claim to miss (the touch on the ball) if that's in fact what he claimed more important than the accuracy of the overall decision?

We've been been critical of VAR and my argument is simply that the contact with the high is enough to warrant a penalty, and as such, there was definitely not enough to claim that he made a clear or obvious error, as in the decision of the penalty itself. If there are multiple parts to the decision, then the ref claiming to miss only one part of it while completely ignoring the other is wrong. And again, if you personally don't believe that the contact with the thigh is enough, that's an argument but it's not enough to change the onfield decision. Whether or not the ref made a clear or obvious mistake has to do with the decision itself, not merely one specific component of it. If he missed a part of it, that doesn't stop him from also looking at the other parts that would go into a decision.

For that decision to be overturned to a no pen, for me you can't have any of that thigh contact, because the thigh contact is enough by itself to warrant a penalty, and with the penalty given on the pitch, would need evidence that this contact didn't occur in order to reverse the decision, according to their own standards and protocols.

All that said, I have no problem with you or Hammer personally deciding that the thigh contact wasn't that significant, but the clear and obvious part of the decision on the pitch being wrong has not been satisfied here.

VAR did not overturn the decision. The Ref did. That's why he went to monitor, had a much clearer look at a better angle and deemed it not a penalty. which it wasn't.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I understand your reasoning and that's a fair assessment however as you've pointed out, it comes down to a judgement (subjective) decision rather than something that was clear and obvious. That's the same argument that I was making. That it wasn't a clear or obvious mistake on the pitch, so therefore, according to VAR's own protocols, VAR isn't supposed to "intervene".

Intervene meaning, as I was told, apparently doesn't mean whether or not they decide to go to review, intervene as I was told means whether they decide to change the onfield decision following a review.

So as such they didn't have enough to intervene here, since there are two elements to this - the foot to the ball (which on its own would be a good tackle) and the upper leg contact which brought him down.

There was enough contact with the upper thigh that would surely justify staying with the onfield decision. I mean, if you make a clean tackle on the ball but you collide with a player somewhere else on his body, it's still a foul. What we have here is a tunnel vision situation where the referee is not really making a decision, he's merely been guided to a decision, told what to look at etc.

The fact is that, the player didn't dive here, he was certainly brought down by the thigh contact which should be a foul. Only focusing on the foot and ignoring the contact with the upper leg is corrupt, because it only focuses on one of two elements of the play.

So this is a judgement call, a subjective decision, with a clean foot tackle and contact between the thigh, rather than something clear or obvious that would warrant reversing the call on the field.

Your last paragraph highlights a large flaw with VAR is that they can adjust how they interpret the criteria in order to arrive at whatever decision they want.

The logic here might be, like you said, the ref said he didn't see the touch on the ball and used that as the something he "missed" when in reality he's just saying that and that is only a component of the overall decision. Then again the touch wouldn't have been too hard to see so I'm not sure I'm buying that, but lets say it's true.

Think about how flawed this decision-making is by taking another example. Lets say a defender elbowed a player in the head as he was making a good touch on the ball. Lets say he ruled a penalty on the pitch. But according to you, the ref could go to the monitor and claim he he didn't see the touch, and then conclude that it wasn't a penalty, completely ignoring the elbow, because the touch is what he claimed he missed?

Don't you see how problematic this is? If the ref truly missed something, it needs to relate to the overall decision, not just one component of the incident while ignoring another.

So again this is one of these that you could misconstrue the situation to do what the ref at the monitor did, but it's a highly corrupt highly debatable decision, given the thigh contact. Would you not agree that the thigh contact is enough by itself to uphold the decision of a pen?

Why is what the ref might claim to miss (the touch on the ball) if that's in fact what he claimed more important than the accuracy of the overall decision?

We've been been critical of VAR and my argument is simply that the contact with the high is enough to warrant a penalty, and as such, there was definitely not enough to claim that he made a clear or obvious error, as in the decision of the penalty itself. If there are multiple parts to the decision, then the ref claiming to miss only one part of it while completely ignoring the other is wrong. And again, if you personally don't believe that the contact with the thigh is enough, that's an argument but it's not enough to change the onfield decision. Whether or not the ref made a clear or obvious mistake has to do with the decision itself, not merely one specific component of it. If he missed a part of it, that doesn't stop him from also looking at the other parts that would go into a decision.

For that decision to be overturned to a no pen, for me you can't have any of that thigh contact, because the thigh contact is enough by itself to warrant a penalty, and with the penalty given on the pitch, would need evidence that this contact didn't occur in order to reverse the decision, according to their own standards and protocols.

All that said, I have no problem with you or Hammer personally deciding that the thigh contact wasn't that significant, but the clear and obvious part of the decision on the pitch being wrong has not been satisfied here.

I'm not saying everything is rosy in the garden, just that getting a touch on the ball isn't the determining factor in isolation. It's way too simplistic to say it is. And way too stupid which is why idiot football pundits keep bringing it up.

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

I'm not saying everything is rosy in the garden, just that getting a touch on the ball isn't the determining factor in isolation. It's way too simplistic to say it is. And way too stupid which is why idiot football pundits keep bringing it up.

And I've made it clear that there are other considerations as well, besides just getting to the ball first. But I've also stressed (in the past) that getting to the ball first is a very important part of it, and in some situations, can be what or should determine the decision. But it depends on if there's anything else to consider. The problem here isn't that he got to the ball first with the touch on to the ball but the fact that he brought him down by colliding with the upper leg / thigh.

I think you understand my point, and I get your point. But I would ask you plainly, putting the touch on the ball aside, isn't the thigh contact on its own enough to warrant a penalty and uphold the decision?

 

[TheBeautifulGame]

VAR did not overturn the decision. The Ref did. That's why he went to monitor, had a much clearer look at a better angle and deemed it not a penalty. which it wasn't.

Was he told to go to the monitor or did he go to the monitor on his own?