V.A.R

[GolfePersique]

What do you think about the introduction of VAR in the World Cup?

[Ali Doust]

Like Amrabat said "VAR is bullshit"

[Adesor Vafaseya]

VAR in its current form is nonesense and not transparent enough!
It needs modification! The best VAR system, I find is in American Football, where the teams have the right to challenge decisions and the VAR screen that the ref sees is shown on big stadium screens and on live TVs, there is little room for “on purpose favoring one team”!

[Leicester City]

It removes the human element of the game.

[GolfePersique]

They say it's got to be clear and obvious, firstly who and what defines that term?

If it is that clear and obvious, why does it take so much for theref tomake their mind?

I wonder if someone can pull off the stas of how many time they did get it "right" and "wrong" or refused to used it when it was necessary!

In my view, it had 2 big roles: to ensure most of the favourites make it tothe knock-out stages and then use it sparingly for their spoiled teams.

If this is it's main purpose, I'd rather go back to old refereeing with Ben Williams and Mazic, because it doesn't make any difference to fairplay.

[AllStarMomo]

We got our only scored goal out of VAR!

[enikoravesh]

VAR is good only if the fuckers up top actually paid attention to the video replays instead of watching porno the whole time.

[Babak agha]

We got our only scored goal out of VAR!

Before anybody comes in to say we got a goal disallowed because of the VAR. No, that goal was already called off by the assistent referee for offside. The VAR was used to overrule his desicion and give us the goal. However they correctly decided not to do that.

[inarsenewetrust]

Before anybody comes in to say we got a goal disallowed because of the VAR. No, that goal was already called off by the assistent referee for offside. The VAR was used to overrule his desicion and give us the goal. However they correctly decided not to do that.

we had another clear penalty on taremi that wasnt called... before that mercy call that was a result of many wrong desicions my ref in favor of portugal. And the fact that perisic's hand ball was called today, makes guerreiro's handball call look more reasonable.

[Babak agha]

They have to be consistent though. I also thought it was too harsh, but how can they give us a penalty for something even more controversial and not give this one?

[OFFSIDE_1]

here is the problem with VAR. The handball by the Croatian defender would not have been called a penalty in 9 out of 10 times. In 9 out of 10 times, the ref would let it go because it really was not intentional and knowing that a penalty would completely change the outcome of the game, the Ref would look the other way.

However when you watch it on VAR, unfortunately you have to call it a penalty because it forces referees to call it literally. You watch it in slow motion and clearly it was a handball, but most plays when shown in slow motion, will look 10 times worse, so the referee reviews the play and has absolutely no choice but to call it a penalty.

I think there are certain calls that should use VAR. A corner versus goal kick. A ball passing through the goal line. A player diving pretending he was headbutted ...... these are things that make sense when using VAR and there is no interpretation involved. If it bounces off a defender then it should be called a corner kick and there would be no controversy. A few were missed in this game today.

I do not think using VAR for handballs, offsides and fouls is a good idea. Using VAR for fouls is the most ridiculous decision made by FIFA in a long time. Every contact could be interpreted as a foul and if you see it in slow motion it's even more convincing.

[inarsenewetrust]

here is the problem with VAR. The handball by the Croatian defender would not have been called a penalty in 9 out of 10 times. In 9 out of 10 times, the ref would let it go because it really was not intentional and knowing that a penalty would completely change the outcome of the game, the Ref would look the other way.
However when you watch it on VAR, unfortunately you have to call it a penalty because it forces referees to call it literally. You watch it in slow motion and clearly it was a handball, but most plays when shown in slow motion, will look 10 times worse, so the referee reviews the play and has absolutely no choice but to call it a penalty.
I think there are certain calls that should use VAR. A corner versus goal kick. A ball passing through the goal line. A player diving pretending he was headbutted ...... these are things that make sense when using VAR and there is no interpretation involved. If it bounces off a defender then it should be called a corner kick and there would be no controversy. A few were missed in this game today.
I do not think using VAR for handballs, offsides and fouls is a good idea. Using VAR for fouls is the most ridiculous decision made by FIFA in a long time. Every contact could be interpreted as a foul and if you see it in slow motion it's even more convincing.

great analysis on this. You hit the nail on the head.

[Sam khan]

VAR is excellent.

But it is still in its infant stages. Football culture, ref culture, and fans expectations have to change. IT WILL TAKE TIME.

I watch the Rugby six nations live every year and whilst I think football is a far superior game to rugby one of the many things rugby has over football is a more professional approach and one of those aspects is VAR. Big decisions go to VAR and it helps immensely. Now of course Rugby is different because a) the game is a lot more stop-start and slow and b) there are incredibly difficult things to try to work out (like when you have 20 men in a pile on top of each other and you're trying to work out if the guy at the bottom has control of the ball on the ground). HOWEVER the culture of rugby is FAR more refined. Players don't argue with the ref, you hear exactly what the ref is saying, and players hardly ever cheat and fake injuries like football players are trained to do.

Football has been crying out for VAR for years and I think the biggest plus will be the change in the culture of the players. The reason football players cheat and fake and exaggerate is because they know the ref can't see everything so they can either lie, or exaggerate to make sure he does see something and the reason they argue is because they know the ref cant' be sure so they have to put pressure on the poor chap.

I'm actually wondering if one of the reasons there seems to have been such an incredible closing of the gap of traditionally "good" and "poor" teams this WC is partly because of VAR. Eg Portugal and Brazil are renowned for being the most dirty despicable horrible cheaters in world football. And look, surprise surprise as soon as there is a VAR world cup, they are made to look so much more normal. Neymar had to hold back a little. Ronaldo couldn't get the penalties and red cards against him that he usually fakes (although he did manage to get one questionable penalty given). Suddenly these teams were made to look just that little bit more normal. Iran on the other hand, traditionally considered a weak team, had a penalty given which may not have been given otherwise because it's "against the script" that Iran should be able to draw with Portugal. Yes it can be argued the penalty was harsh, but these penalties are given all the time and the ball DID hit his hand and he DID have his arms stupidly high, even for a jump. PLayers have been trying to catch the system out but flinging their arms up when they jump so they can cry "ball to hand!" but refs and VAR are getting wise to it. People are now runnign with arms behind their backs in the penalty area - the way it should be, if they don't want a harsh decision against them. On the other hand we had a booking for Ronaldo. The dirty cheat would normally get away with that sort of behaviour but VAR caught him. He therefore couldn't do it as much, and look... Portugal were made to look normal against us and the result was a fair reflection.

Still, unfortunately of course bias kicks in and he wasn't given the red card he deserved, and Azmoun wasn't given a penalty etc etc... but at least this is all a step in the right direction.

For me, it will be properly mature when the team captain or manager has the option of requesting a limited number of VAR analyses. Let's say 2 per half. If they are correct then they don't count.

That would massively improve the game. Iran would have another penalty or two in the Portugal match. We'd have had a penalty against Argentina last world cup. Etc..

Another factor is that if VAR can be used in conjunction with new laws. For example, I believe anyone (like players from a Portguese speaking country for example) who dives and cheats should be given an instant red card. That would change the game OVERNIGHT. All this cheating would just vanish and football would be a pure game, the way it was intended and will be far more healthy. The trouble is that without VAR there is absolutely no way a ref can, no matter how dodgy it looks, given a red card to a player for what he thinks was diving. But with VAR these decisions become simple. It will stop overnight.

VAR is great, it just needs more time, more thought and a couple of tweaks to make it literally a game changer for football.

Until then, whilst I think football is a superior sport, I prefer rubgy and look with more interest at how the Iranian rugby team is doing.

[Babak agha]

here is the problem with VAR. The handball by the Croatian defender would not have been called a penalty in 9 out of 10 times. In 9 out of 10 times, the ref would let it go because it really was not intentional and knowing that a penalty would completely change the outcome of the game, the Ref would look the other way.
However when you watch it on VAR, unfortunately you have to call it a penalty because it forces referees to call it literally. You watch it in slow motion and clearly it was a handball, but most plays when shown in slow motion, will look 10 times worse, so the referee reviews the play and has absolutely no choice but to call it a penalty.
I think there are certain calls that should use VAR. A corner versus goal kick. A ball passing through the goal line. A player diving pretending he was headbutted ...... these are things that make sense when using VAR and there is no interpretation involved. If it bounces off a defender then it should be called a corner kick and there would be no controversy. A few were missed in this game today.
I do not think using VAR for handballs, offsides and fouls is a good idea. Using VAR for fouls is the most ridiculous decision made by FIFA in a long time. Every contact could be interpreted as a foul and if you see it in slow motion it's even more convincing.

They already have goal line technology, so the VAR isn't needed for any calls of the ball passing the goal line or not.
The VAR should be used more like an assistent referee for smaller impact decisions that are not open for interpretation, no need for the referee to review those calls. So if they see that it was a corner, they should just tell the ref to call a corner and he should instantly call it without reviewing it.

For higher impact decisions (penalty red card), they should just notify the ref within 20 seconds if they think it's needed (bad decision, missed the foul) and have the ref review it. It really doesn't make any sense for them to review it for 1 minute and then call in the ref and have him review it again. This way you'll make sure the game doesn't get slowed down like it happened with Iran vs Portugal (took minutes before we got the penalty).

That also means that if the foul was outside of the box or there was no contact with the diving player, they should just call it immediately as those are also facts and not up for interpretation.

[ferdowsi]

It removes the human element of the game.

This. It drains the passion out of football. Football isn't supposed to be a perfect game. Perfection is boring. VAR makes the game flat. Part of the excitement is in the knowledge that there is a very imperfect human refree and the feeling that if only you could get rid of them with a robot then it would be perfect.