Yes I understand that.
But the point was that people will always complain about referees affecting the result as long as there are referees to complain about, irrespective of VAR. So your point that people would have been complaining about the referee if VAR hadn't been there doesn't really hold up when people are still complaining about the referee even with VAR there.
If you had said that there were fewer things to complain about the referee's performance with VAR, then that would be right. Hopefully.
Anyway, small point.
Ironically, England may have been in a better position mentally if the penalty wasn't given rather than was given and missed spectacularly. They were looking pretty good for a while and an equaliser wasn't out of the question in the time remaining. The missed penalty may have deflated them.
It's not such a small point, it's a large point that I addressed in my previous post, that England would have been in a better position mentally had the penalty not been given, given how it played out. Obviously you want the penalty in the moment, and especially after looking at the slow-mo replay seeing how "bad" and "intentional" the shove looked. But in slow-motion everything looks worse than it actually is in real-time, and that's a fact. And yet no ones talking about how the ball was unplayable in the first place even without the shove. That should be a consideration in these kinds of situations. To use a bad analogy to illustrate this point, lets take the American NFL for example
(I know, I know, the NFL isn't football, but hear me out) if there's a pass interference penalty in American Football's NFL but the ball is deemed to be "uncatchable" (too far away to be caught) the penalty gets waived off and it's not a penalty.
This same principle doesn't exactly translate to football, but it could. And it certainly makes a no-call in a situation that could be a penalty but wasn't in a situation away from the ball more justifiable. I bring this up because VAR is clearly inspired by the NFL instant replay system and many of the same "replay decision-making" principles apply when reviewing NFL plays and football plays alike. If you don't like the American NFL and how they do things with all their instant replay stoppages, then why do you like VAR? VAR is basically football's version of NFL's instant replay and why I don't like VAR is because they're trying to make the beautiful game more like the NFL's stop and go style which doesn't belong in football!
We can all agree that "missed" penalty decisions
(I don't mean not missed PKs, I mean penalties / fouls on the pitch in the box that are missed by the referee and not given) are much harder to stomach when the missed foul prevented a goal scoring opportunity. When a foul occurs away from the ball that doesn't prevent a goal-scoring opportunity, I'm not saying it shouldn't be given, but it really depends on the situation. But if a foul in the box doesn't prevent a goal scoring opportunity, then while it still could be given, it's less warranted than if it did.
The fact that the shove didn't prevent a goal scoring opportunity made a real-time no-call stomach-able but the end result as the result of a long VAR review and a horrendous penalty miss by Harry Kane results in a nightmarish scenario that never would have occurred in a football world without VAR.
For all we know, without VAR, England finds an equalizer another way, and Harry Kane ends up being the hero and England are in the Final. What I'm getting at is that VAR alters the natural history of football in agonizing ways, which is why it shouldn't exist, it doesn't solve anything, it doesn't improve officiating by and large.
I'll agree that for most of the WC there hasn't been many VAR controversies. There's been a few, but overall it's been marginally better compared to how its been handled in the Premier League or in the last WC, but all it takes is one situation like these France VAR situations to remind us how problematic it is, how it creates mores problems than it solves and we still end up with controversy.
As others have said, there are still fans complaining that the ref cost England the game against France, even outside of the VAR decisions.
But frankly when we talk about how relatively "good" VAR has been for "most" of this World Cup, you have to ask yourself why that is. It's because in those matches where there hasn't been controversy, it's generally (outside of a couple of instances) because
in those matches VAR hasn't been called on or used at all!
So the argument that VAR has been better in this WC is mostly because of how sparingly its been used which only reaffirms the idea that it only create problems when it's used and when it's not used fans are happy with it. If fans are more happy about how VAR is being used here in the WC, when it's not been used as often as it was in the Premier League on a per match basis for example, then that pretty much speaks for itself. VAR is better when it's not used because every time it's used, there's often controversy. And when it isn't used in situation where fans think it should, it crates more controversy and more outage.
And two more things that I'd like to bring up that is very apparent throughout the tournament. The endless appeals from players throughout matches, every time a ball goes out for a goal kick or a corner, at least one player always has his hand up as if to say "out on him" "it should be our ball ref". This happens ad naseum throughout each match and this was never a thing (at least not to this extent) before VAR.
Further, as we know, VAR doesn't review goal kick / corner kicks, but there's been plenty of "clear and obvious errors" throughout this tournament as it pertains to goal kick / corner kick decisions, several in the France Morocco match that the Morocco players kept complaining about. And looking at the replays, in many cases (not all, but some) they appeared to be right and had a case that they deserved another corner kick or two.
Then there's the offside problem with continues to annoy the spectator. Throughout this tournament the linesman have allowed play to continue after clear offside situations only for the resulting play to commence then a late offside decision given. This is not satisfactory in any way. For a play that we know is offsides to continue on for 10 or 15 seconds, then for offsides to be given after something else happened, it's aggravating to watch every time this occurs.
Obviously there are situations that are too hard for the linesman to call and play is allowed to continue, but there were numerous instances in that France Morocco match where offsides was clear as day but play was allowed to continue, only for it to be called back. This is another bad consequence of VAR's existence. For the rare case of a missed offside or the rare case of an offside incorrectly given in real-time, we now often have multiple instances per game of clear offsides being seen but yet play being allowed to continue only to be pulled back. I'm not saying this new VAR-induced scenario is worse than offsides howlers from the past, but clearly play being allowed to continue despite clear offsides only to be pulled back happens far more often than offsides howlers ever did, and in the case where play being allowed to continue resulted in a goal or a penalty, the controversy is then compounded by false play continuing situations that would have and should have been flagged right away if it wasn't for VAR.
