City v Lyon

[santa sangria]

Smart refereeing would have been to whistle the foul.
Everyone would have bought it, no complaints, because of the player in an offside position.
At grassroots, if we are on form, 9 out of 10 of us on here are whistling for the foul aren't we?

Go back three years and the best referees in the world, in the biggest games, whistle that foul, under extreme pressure.

But now, with the VAR "safety net" (not)... the best referees in the world are re-learning how to make the biggest KMI decisions in the biggest matches - and this varce is the result.

 

[socal lurker]

And chances are that without VAR the referee gives the FK. We're guessing because there's a UEFA omerta on communications between referee and VAR.

Smart refereeing would have been to whistle the foul.
Everyone would have bought it, no complaints, because of the player in an offside position.
At grassroots, if we are on form, 9 out of 10 of us on here are whistling for the foul aren't we?

Go back three years and the best referees in the world, in the biggest games, whistle that foul, under extreme pressure.

But now, with the VAR "safety net" (not)... the best referees in the world are re-learning how to make the biggest KMI decisions in the biggest matches - and this varce is the result.

I think the assumptions that the foul would have been called without VAR are baseless. Now anytime there is a call that someone thinks should have been called, we’re off to the conspiracy theory. A theory that those who have risen to the top of the referee profession and are graded on the accuracy of their calls like the prospect of VAR reversals so much they swallow the whistle and let the VAR call the game. I think that’s nonsense. (If anything, the safer path for the R would be to call it—then there is no attempt at a goal and no controversy, rather than the embarrassing specter of VAR review calling back a goal that the ref should have called in real time. )

 

[bloovee]

I think the assumptions that the foul would have been called without VAR are baseless. Now anytime there is a call that someone thinks should have been called, we’re off to the conspiracy theory. A theory that those who have risen to the top of the referee profession and are graded on the accuracy of their calls like the prospect of VAR reversals so much they swallow the whistle and let the VAR call the game. I think that’s nonsense. (If anything, the safer path for the R would be to call it—then there is no attempt at a goal and no controversy, rather than the embarrassing specter of VAR review calling back a goal that the ref should have called in real time. )

If VAR is taking into account not wanting to embarrass the referee that's controversial in itself. (Forget this incident - isn't VAR there to "get it right" no matter how embarrassing? And if the referee is unsighted, why not let him see what he missed with OFR?)

 

[GraemeS]

And chances are that without VAR the referee gives the FK. We're guessing because there's a UEFA omerta on communications between referee and VAR.

Sorry, who's guessing? You've just made an entirely baseless statement and then tried to lump in everyone else's reasoned arguments along with it. You're guessing. Everyone else is making considered arguments!

Offside I agree with the majority - it "feels" offside, but there's been a consistent pattern of that kind of dummy not counting as offence really, so no offence.

Foul - meh, maybe? You certainly wouldn't cause a riot if you did blow it, but I think a lot worse things are waved off as "incidental contact" on a fairly regular basis. Certainly not enough there to meet the criteria for a C&O VAR overturn, so once the goal has been given on the field, there's no justification for that to be overruled.

 

[santa sangria]

I think the assumptions that the foul would have been called without VAR are baseless. Now anytime there is a call that someone thinks should have been called, we’re off to the conspiracy theory. A theory that those who have risen to the top of the referee profession and are graded on the accuracy of their calls like the prospect of VAR reversals so much they swallow the whistle and let the VAR call the game. I think that’s nonsense. (If anything, the safer path for the R would be to call it—then there is no attempt at a goal and no controversy, rather than the embarrassing specter of VAR review calling back a goal that the ref should have called in real time. )

Not conspiracy theory for me chief.
For me it's about the best refs preparing for 20 years to make the biggest calls in the biggest matches, and then having to re learn the skill on the fly in 2 years.

 

[santa sangria]

Here it is on YouTube:

Watch the replay at 2:20.

Looks to me like the referee is actually unsighted?
He also puts his whistle to his lips!
It's quite odd. What is he thinking - did he nearly blow based on the players falling over even though he didn't see the contact?
At which point it is quite odd that VAR didn't correct it (if it was a foul). Surely, if the ref does not see it it must be clear and obvious?

This is the first time I've seen the whole clip. Whatever you think the outcome should be, the ref has not cloaked himself in glory here.

 

[Degnann]

Looks to me like the referee is actually unsighted?
He also puts his whistle to his lips!
It's quite odd. What is he thinking - did he nearly blow based on the players falling over even though he didn't see the contact?
At which point it is quite odd that VAR didn't correct it (if it was a foul). Surely, if the ref does not see it it must be clear and obvious?

This is the first time I've seen the whole clip. Whatever you think the outcome should be, the ref has not cloaked himself in glory here.

We will never know why the referee made his decision. The referee did put his whistle to his lips but that doesn’t always mean he is going to blow it. There are 3 other people in his ear excl VAR who could possibly be telling him, its not a foul etc or he sees its through on goal so not to blow and wait to see if they score and let VAR do what its there for.

Personally I’m still not sure its a foul, the more I watch the clip the more I’m convinced Laporte trips himself.

 

[Kes]

I think the assumptions that the foul would have been called without VAR are baseless.

I disagree. Most refs would err on the side of caution whenever there was the prospect of a foul involved in the scoring of a goal. Like @santa sangria said, VAR has changed all that.
For all it's faults, I certainly wish VAR had been around when Sol Campbell scored two perfectly good "winning" goals for England in the knockout stages of the World Cup and the Euros in 1998 and 2004 respectively. .

 

[one]

Surely, if the ref does not see it it must be clear and obvious?

I can see every other point you are making except for this? What is this based on?

 

[Big Cat]

Here it is on YouTube:

Watch the replay at 2:20.

Looks to me like the referee is actually unsighted?
He also puts his whistle to his lips!
It's quite odd. What is he thinking - did he nearly blow based on the players falling over even though he didn't see the contact?
At which point it is quite odd that VAR didn't correct it (if it was a foul). Surely, if the ref does not see it it must be clear and obvious?

This is the first time I've seen the whole clip. Whatever you think the outcome should be, the ref has not cloaked himself in glory here.

i) It's quite common to see these top refs put the whistle to the mouth like that. I'm unforgiving of myself at for that and 7-to-6 marks lost for sure
ii) The whistle tone in the Champions League games has been awful. It's a long loud blast for everything. 7-to-6 marks lost for that
iii) I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to think that referees are using VAR as a safety net. I think it's a natural consequence of having Big Brother in the background. The Tierney/Pogba incident was the prime example
iv) Like @bloovee , I'm very suspicious of how the Comms are used these days

 

[bloovee]

We will never know why the referee made his decision. The referee did put his whistle to his lips but that doesn’t always mean he is going to blow it. There are 3 other people in his ear excl VAR who could possibly be telling him, its not a foul etc or he sees its through on goal so not to blow and wait to see if they score and let VAR do what its there for.

Personally I’m still not sure its a foul, the more I watch the clip the more I’m convinced Laporte trips himself.

You see, the more I look at the movement at 2.28 the more I'm convinced that Dembele stretches out a leg to kick Laporte. But you might be right. The VAR has presumably more than two angles to look at and do slo mo. Maybe it's obvious from one of them that there was no contact. UEFA tells us and shows us that and the controversy goes away. If it wasn't obviously "no contact", then it looks more like an obvious error by an unsighted referee who put his whistle to his lips for something.

And why will we never know why the referee made his decision? Because of the omerta on telling us what went on between ref and VAR. Has no-one done the lipreading with the gesture at 1.58?

(Don't forget the real conspiracy theory of the handball goal Spurs scored last season. If the VAR wasn't shown that angle from the broadcaster, does that mean the broadcaster is choosing what to show the VAR?)

 

[QuaverRef]

ii) The whistle tone in the Champions League games has been awful. It's a long loud blast for everything. 7-to-6 marks lost for that

You’re right, but don’t forget that these games are now being played an huge empty stadiums. There’s a noticeable echo

 

[onthebrink]

I'm not sure the referee saw the potential foul in real time so not convinced he'd have given it without VAR. If the introduction of VAR has stopped referees from sometimes 'guessing' when giving defensive free-kicks to err on the side of caution then I think that's a good thing in general rather than bad.

I can see every other point you are making except for this? What is this based on?

I guess what the poster is saying here is that if the referee hasn't seen an incident the threshold for VAR intervention should drop a bit because they aren't 'over-ruling' an active decision. A referee saying 'The defender initiated the contact for me' or 'I thought it was just a coming together - no careless contact' is a bit different to 'I didn't see it - what's happened?'

 

[socal lurker]

iv) Like @bloovee , I'm very suspicious of how the Comms are used these days

Huh. It's not a conspiracy theory to say that all of the referee organizations in the world are lying about how comms with VAR are used and not used?!?!?

Not conspiracy theory for me chief.
For me it's about the best refs preparing for 20 years to make the biggest calls in the biggest matches, and then having to re learn the skill on the fly in 2 years.

Re-learn what? Refs are supposed to make calls on the field the same way they did without VAR. The only thing that they are supposed to do differently is delay on close OS calls (most parts of the world, it is the AR who is delaying; one or a few expect the ref to delay the whistle after the flag).

I think the theories here about refs waiting for VAR to make calls for them have no more basis than the fan-boy posts of "that ref doesn't like my team." It's searching for an explanation for a call that people don't like. We used to say the ref blew a call. Now on the same play folks say the ref deliberately didn't make a call. Refs miss calls. that's life. And not all missed calls meet the standards for VAR involvement. That's life, too. Unless we want to expand VAR radically, it's going to stay that way. I've been vocal about disliking VR in soccer. And expanding involvement of the VAR in APP calls is the last thing the game needs.

And again on this call: the safer call for the R in the world of VAR would be to call it--because that cannot be reviewed. By not calling it, the R risks both missing the call and having a reversal and missing the call but not having it be a bad enough miss to be reversed.

If VAR is taking into account not wanting to embarrass the referee that's controversial in itself. (Forget this incident - isn't VAR there to "get it right" no matter how embarrassing? And if the referee is unsighted, why not let him see what he missed with OFR?)

And what evidence is there of VARs trying not to embarass Rs? VAR is deliberately not designed to get every call right. And thank goodness for that--the last thing we want is the R trotting over to the touchline every time there is a possible call that he might not have seen. On judgment calls, VR is designed for bad misses, not all misses. The VAR is only supposed to send things down that fall into that category. Embarrassing has absolutely nothing to do with it--VARs who don't send down plays they are supposed to are going to get marked down for not sending them down. (And likewise get marked down for sending down plays that don't meet the protocols.)

I think, and I think the VAR thought, this was a debateabe call as to who was responsible for the contact. That isn't something that the protocols expect to be sent down. If this play is supposed to be sent down, a lot more plays get sent down.

 

[bloovee]

Huh. It's not a conspiracy theory to say that all of the referee organizations in the world are lying about how comms with VAR are used and not used?!?!?

Why? What are they saying? "We can't tell you how it was used"?
....

I think, and I think the VAR thought, this was a debateabe call as to who was responsible for the contact. That isn't something that the protocols expect to be sent down. If this play is supposed to be sent down, a lot more plays get sent down.

Not really. How many goals are scored by a player who may have tripped a defender who could have stopped him scoring?

 

[Big Cat]

Huh. It's not a conspiracy theory to say that all of the referee organizations in the world are lying about how comms with VAR are used and not used?!?!?



Re-learn what? Refs are supposed to make calls on the field the same way they did without VAR. The only thing that they are supposed to do differently is delay on close OS calls (most parts of the world, it is the AR who is delaying; one or a few expect the ref to delay the whistle after the flag).

I think the theories here about refs waiting for VAR to make calls for them have no more basis than the fan-boy posts of "that ref doesn't like my team." It's searching for an explanation for a call that people don't like. We used to say the ref blew a call. Now on the same play folks say the ref deliberately didn't make a call. Refs miss calls. that's life. And not all missed calls meet the standards for VAR involvement. That's life, too. Unless we want to expand VAR radically, it's going to stay that way. I've been vocal about disliking VR in soccer. And expanding involvement of the VAR in APP calls is the last thing the game needs.

And again on this call: the safer call for the R in the world of VAR would be to call it--because that cannot be reviewed. By not calling it, the R risks both missing the call and having a reversal and missing the call but not having it be a bad enough miss to be reversed.



And what evidence is there of VARs trying not to embarass Rs? VAR is deliberately not designed to get every call right. And thank goodness for that--the last thing we want is the R trotting over to the touchline every time there is a possible call that he might not have seen. On judgment calls, VR is designed for bad misses, not all misses. The VAR is only supposed to send things down that fall into that category. Embarrassing has absolutely nothing to do with it--VARs who don't send down plays they are supposed to are going to get marked down for not sending them down. (And likewise get marked down for sending down plays that don't meet the protocols.)

I think, and I think the VAR thought, this was a debateabe call as to who was responsible for the contact. That isn't something that the protocols expect to be sent down. If this play is supposed to be sent down, a lot more plays get sent down.

A lot of putting words into people's mouths going on
It's fair to say that VAR has complicated things so much, none of us know what's what anymore; but it's reasonable to assert that VAR is messing with the heads of MITM. I feel that VAR has detrimentally affected the standard of refereeing (on-field) and I also believe it's inevitable that the MO's will occasionally break protocol, even if they didn't intend to do so. We're not talking about malpractice, just a system that seems impossible to work with

 

[bloovee]

A lot of putting words into people's mouths going on
It's fair to say, that VAR has complicated things so much, none of us know what's what anymore; but it's reasonable to assert that VAR is messing with the heads of MITM. I feel that VAR has detrimentally affected the standard of refereeing (on-field) and I also believe it's inevitable that the MO's will occasionally break protocol, even if they didn't intend to do so. We're not talking about malpractice, just a system that seems impossible to work with

I'd agree entirely but add that (especially in the EPL) the FA's expectation that "a high bar" is needed for VAR intervention on what may be an error just means that what the vast majority of people (fans, pundits, other referees of all levels - apart from the PGMOL club) think is an error is not picked up by VAR as an error. Worse, the law has been changed (so PGMOL's ban on OFR has to end) to say subjective decisions should be after OFR, but that "high bar" will just mean that the VAR will still only ask the referee to look at errors so obvious that if the referee looks at the monitor and doesn't agree with the VAR they will both (and the entire protocol) be (to use someone else's word) "embarrassed".

 

[Peter Grove]

I'm not sure why so many people are talking about whether the VAR should have intervened if there was a foul - and whether the foul was "clear and obvious."

This has been clearly stated since the first VAR protocol came out - the VAR is not supposed to look at whether it was a foul, but only at whether the referee's decision not to give a foul, was clearly and obviously wrong.

So if you're asking if I think it was a foul, I'd say probably yes, but if you're asking if I think the referee was clearly and obviously wrong in not giving it, I'd say probably no.

 

[Jtpetherick1]

(Don't forget the real conspiracy theory of the handball goal Spurs scored last season. If the VAR wasn't shown that angle from the broadcaster, does that mean the broadcaster is choosing what to show the VAR?)

I'm honestly too tired of discussing the incident elsewhere to way in, but just a note on this. No, the broadcaster does not get a choice what the VAR sees. Like the VAR, the TV director gets to see every camera angle of anything but rather than when the VAR gets a choice of every angle, the director would just say - show camera 2, now jump to 3 because I think its better. We see what the director shows us, the VAR sees the feeds before that call is made.

 

[bloovee]

I'm honestly too tired of discussing the incident elsewhere to way in, but just a note on this. No, the broadcaster does not get a choice what the VAR sees. Like the VAR, the TV director gets to see every camera angle of anything but rather than when the VAR gets a choice of every angle, the director would just say - show camera 2, now jump to 3 because I think its better. We see what the director shows us, the VAR sees the feeds before that call is made.

That means either that the VAR didn't see every camera angle, or got the decision wrong in awarding a goal which clearly came off an elbow.