Football / soccer nerds - is the VAR annoying?

[Carvel]

The VAR has made me very cautious on celebrating goals, especially when I'm in the stadium. Most of the time instead of instantly cheering, I check to see if the referee has his hand on his earpiece. To be honest, this sucks and does take away some of the fun. However, the whole procedure has improved in the past two seasons. While it still does not (and cannot) prevent referees from making disputable decisions, I appreciate that it seems to work perfectly in the context of offside-decisions.

 

[Gawge]

Doesn't work with the sport.

Video review systems work well in sports like cricket and tennis as there are clear and frequent breaks in play to review decisions.

Football is incredibly fluid and I really don't think the VAR system fits. I don't think it's fair to only review around goals and penalties as well. More importantly, it ruins the in-stadium experience and has far from magically eradicated bad decisions.

I accept it's not going anywhere now, but they should reserve it for serious 'clear and obvious errors'. Like, where the VAR watches it once and can see a clear error, not where they watch it in slow motion for 2 minutes and then ask the referee to walk to the side and do the same.

 

[Syder]

Before it was implemented, I wanted it for years.

Today, I'm sat here feeling sorry for Spurs. This is wrong.

 

[345]

Join the footy thread you marks.

VAR is fine when done right. Last season they were disallowing a ton of goals because someone's nipple was offside and yes, offside is offside, but it was getting ridiculous. This year they just stopped showing fans the lines they were drawing.

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huh, i still see the lines on the DAZN broadcast. kind of wish i didn't.

However, the whole procedure has improved in the past two seasons. While it still does not (and cannot) prevent referees from making disputable decisions, I appreciate that it seems to work perfectly in the context of offside-decisions.

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i don't think the technology is anywhere near precise enough to calculate it down to the millimetre like the lines imply. without a higher framerate you can't even tell when the pass exactly leaves the attacker's boot, so what's the point of basing the lines on that specific capture?

 

[Deleted member 2834]

Football is incredibly fluid

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You sure about that? I'm absolutely confident that the average ball-in-play time in modern football is anywhere from 55 min to 60 min (out of 90+ obviously) depending on which league/cup you analyze. I won't even bother googling it because I know I'm right. Football is anything but fluid, you just don't like another layer of interruption I guess.

 

[Antrax]

The obvious answer would be the manager of each team. However, in basketball the coaches are a maximum of something like 25 metres away from any contentious decision, and often quite a bit less than that. On a football pitch, any really contentious decision is practically certain to happen fifty metres or more away from the managers. Even in the (uncommon) situations where they have a clear view, they might not be able to see what happened well enough to decide to use a challenge or not.

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Idk how many cameras and whatnot the average soccer team has but in US football, the coach initiates a challenge but typically waits for his staff to weigh in. They don't have long though because if the next play happens, the chance to challenge passes. So for example if I'm the offense and I think our recent 1st down was incorrect, I'm rushing to get our next play off so the defense has less time to decide on a challenge.

Maybe some kind of "challenges are only valid within 10 seconds of the challenged ruling" or something. Then a coach/manager could quickly say "should I challenge?!" and you keep the game pace.

 

[Robin Friday]

Hawkeye was brought into cricket the best part of twenty years ago, and was immediately a net positive. Footballs had literally decades of technological improvements, and is a complete clusterfuck. We've gone from idiot refs making stupid decisions to idiot refs watching slow motion allowing them to 'see' more stupid decisions.

 

[Zombine]

VAR in the Premier League is shite. It's a crutch for the absolute ineptitude of English refs. I hate how it slows the game down, and how offsides is now fucking forensic science.

 

[Dartastic]

Eh. It only really annoys me when they still somehow fuck up obvious calls even with VAR's help. Or when they allow play to develop far longer than they should after a clear and obvious foul.

 

[whatsinaname]

It's useless when the people using it are still morons. They have no idea about the technical limitations and how to build that into the decisions in a fair way.

Doesn't help that they seem to have implemented drastically new handball rules at the same time.

 

[DBT85]

huh, i still see the lines on the DAZN broadcast. kind of wish i didn't.

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Weird. I work in the building where the bastards are making the decisions for the PL and I don't get to see them lol. Might be your broadcaster adding some, or you're not talking about the PL.

 

[sandyph]

it just another way for United to cheat

 

[345]

Weird. I work in the building where the bastards are making the decisions for the PL and I don't get to see them lol. Might be your broadcaster adding some, or you're not talking about the PL.

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just checked the newcastle penalty again from last night and yep, the lines are still definitely there — there's a bold yellow vertical one and a thinner cross cursor thing that's used to "decide" the blue one.

i'm streaming DAZN in japan, which gets the generic PL feed with the purple/green logos etc, so i'd be surprised if they're adding the lines themselves. maybe though!

 

[DBT85]

just checked the newcastle penalty again from last night and yep, the lines are still definitely there — there's a bold yellow vertical one and a thinner cross cursor thing that's used to "decide" the blue one.

i'm streaming DAZN in japan, which gets the generic PL feed with the purple/green logos etc, so i'd be surprised if they're adding the lines themselves. maybe though!

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That sounds like it's the feed I put out, I'm literally just about to finish my shift. Its possible I wasn't paying attention. Lol

 

[AcademicSaucer]

TMO >>>> VAR

 

[Gawge]

You sure about that? I'm absolutely confident that the average ball-in-play time in modern football is anywhere from 55 min to 60 min (out of 90+ obviously) depending on which league/cup you analyze. I won't even bother googling it because I know I'm right. Football is anything but fluid, you just don't like another layer of interruption I guess.

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Compared to other sports using the technology, yes.

It's not so much the amount of time the ball is in play anyway, it's about the frequency and nature of the breaks. Breaks in play do not come in any sort of pattern, or with any sort of guaranteed frequency, the game is fluid. Goals can be scored 5 seconds after a dodgy throw-in call on halfway, if we aren't checking every throw-in call then I don't think it's fair.

(Coincidentally, I also want less interruption and less stoppages in football, but that is lower down on my list of issues with VAR).

 

[Steezy]

Hate it and never liked it (Tottenham fan here). It's a nice idea but wrong decisions are still being made every week.

i don't think the technology is anywhere near precise enough to calculate it down to the millimetre like the lines imply. without a higher framerate you can't even tell when the pass exactly leaves the attacker's boot, so what's the point of basing the lines on that specific capture?

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This is possibly the worst. It's depressingly hilarious watching them draw these chunky lines at an angle from the other side of the pitch over a blurry picture that's not in line with the player without even checking when the ball was played.

 

[CasuallyDressed]

The technology is great, the implementation needs work.

 

[CortexVortex]

It's annoying as hell and I'm in favor of getting rid of it again.

 

[345]

This is possibly the worst. It's depressingly hilarious watching them draw these chunky lines at an angle from the other side of the pitch over a blurry picture that's not in line with the player without even checking when the ball was played.

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exactly. i'd be in favour of VAR for offside if the rule was simply "if you can't tell without the lines, it's onside". it should only be used as a failsafe against egregiously blown calls

 

[XaviConcept]

Fucking hate it, makes it feel like nothing I watch matters because I need some people in a video booth to validate it.

I dont think its helping making things fairer either, tons of bad calls.

 

[Rodelero]

It's been implemented poorly and combined with an epic cocktail of incompetence, bias and in all likelihood straight up corruption in the refereeing organisations.

 

[Alexandros]

Nope, not at all. Not only does it help in reducing wrong calls by referees and diving by players, it also introduces another element of fuckery into the game which I very much apreciate.

 

[Damien1990]

VAR is fine but the change to the handball rule is not. There have been 21 penalties in 25 games and quite a few of them wouldn't have been the case if not for the stupid handball rule. That is the bigger problem over VAR.

 

[Patitoloco]

I love VAR as an idea, but the implementation is iffy as fuck.

It doesn't help that referees both in the field and in the VAR use it to protect the referee decisions and to prove that they don't need it. Absurd.

 

[Nero3000]

The inconsistencies are more annoying than the actual VAR

 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

Yes. I was OK for it for decisions that the refs missed or when they've made a complete howler. Not if someone is a millimeter offside or if it hits somebody's hand from point blank range. Some common sense needs to be applied.

I had my issues with how it was implemented in the world Cup but it seemed to be far less mindless than it is in the premier league currently