That was a poor decision to disallow Lukaku’s goal. Games gone mad if that’s offside.
That was a poor decision to disallow Lukaku’s goal. Games gone mad if that’s offside.
I’ve completely changed my mind about VAR.
It’s ruling out far too many goals, and spoiling too many “moments”.
I used to think that if technology can get these things right then why keep getting them wrong. What I hadn’t accounted for was how tight many offside decisions are. Top attacking players are right on the shoulder of the last defender, it’s often impossible to tell in the moment whether they’re onside or not. VAR has revealed that quite often they are actually offside, but it’s so marginal that without technology no one would have known that.
So what’s worse? Getting these decisions wrong or ruining too many moments? I’ve come to the view that the latter is wrong. No issue with goal line technology, in instances where the ball is cleared off the line and it’s close no-one is really sure whether it was a goal or not. That’s where technology can be used to sort things out. But with these tight offside calls no-one could see the player was offside, for all the fans know it’s a goal, they’re celebrating and then the moment is ruined by VAR.
Just deal with the really obvious stuff and leave the really marginal ones alone.
It’s ruining the experience of watching games for the fans, and that’s worse than getting things wrong.
I agree; it's not worth celebrating any marginal goal because of the spectre of VAR. It's getting that way with set pieces as well; you can never be sure they won't find some tiny nudge, or a stray offside shoulder in the build up.
It'll get to the stage where the only goals teams will try and score are cut backs from the by-line and every game will be some horrible Guardiola-esque nightmare.
Makes you wonder just how many goals from the past would have been chalked off for one reason or another.
There's one thing wanted to cut out the egregious mistakes, but it's a whole other thing where the game is played to the letter of the rule book. Yes, more decisions will be "correct" but the game will be completely sterile, and at that point I'd rather just watch someone playing FIFA because it amounts to the same thing anyway.
I can't see VAR going anywhere though, I think the only solution would be to change the laws to eliminate the likes of last night's offside. Though I don't really have any faith those in charge would do that successfully. They'd likely make it even worse.
I was talking to a mate about this and he said they could add some tolerance.
That would fix it. It would deal with the really glaring mistakes and leave all the marginal stuff alone.
Getting things right feels like the right thing to do, but we’ve seen how that works in practice and it’s made the experience of watching football worse.
Which game are people watching tonight - I'm watching Scotland as there's more jeopardy though I might flick over to Germany a bit
Yeah I'll be watching them. I tend to support the other UK teams as well as Ireland, partly out of kinship and partly because it really pisses them off.
You used to be everything to me
Now you're tired of fighting
Switzerland: Sommer; Akanji, Rodriguez, Schar; Widmer, Freuler, Xhaka, Rieder; Aebischer, Embolo; Ndoye.
Subs: Stergiou, Elvedi, Zakaria, Okafor, Steffen, Mvogo, Zuber, Zesiger, Sierro
Germany: Neuer; Kimmich, Rudiger, Tah, Mittelstadt; Andrich, Kroos; Musiala, Gundogan, Wirtz; Havertz.
Subs: Raum, Gross, Fullkrug, Fuhrich, Baumann, Muller, Beier, Schlotterbeck, Anton, Sane, Henrichs, ter Stegen, Koch, Can, Undav.
Scotland: Gunn; Hendry, Hanley, McKenna; Ralston, Gilmour, McGregor, Robertson, McTominay, McGinn; Adams. Subs: Kelly, Clark, Christie, Shankland, Cooper, Armstrong, Morgan, Conway, Jack, McCrorie, McLean, Taylor, Forrest.
Hungary: Gulasci, Dardai, Orban, Botka, Styles, Bolla, Kerkez, Schafer, Varga, Sallai, Szoboszlai. Subs: Dibusz, Szappanos, Lang, Balogh, Szalai, Fiola, Nego, A, Nagy, Adam, Kleinheisler, Gazdag, Z. Nagy, Csoboth, Horváth, Kata.
Switzerland 0-1 Germany, Andrich!
This might be disallowed tbf.