Indeed and of course Stokes was the beneficiary of the ‘quirk’ of the system in his most famous innings when the Aussies ran out of referrals when he would have been given out. Of which they then went on to complain that there should be no limit because they lost. Realistically football needs to adopt an NFL style appeal system in which you have something like one appeal per half, you use it and the decision isn’t overturned, you lose a substitute. All major decisions in the last 10 minutes are reviewed. No subs left, no reviews left. Nice and simple and there’s punishment for frivolous reviews. I seem to recall something like it in the Olympic hockey but I don’t care enough to remember. But football fans are notoriously nimby and will refuse any change at all. But only if their team loses.
And that's precisely my point. He didn't know, he guessed a 50/50 call. Like heads or tails. You used him as an example to justify the current system which I found odd. A complete red herring for something that isn't accurate but is sold to everyone as the opposite ('VAR confirmed 100% it was definitely offside')? You don't think it matters that they want the offside/onside calls to be at a level of precision that they currently don't have the technology for? I don't get your "getting sucked in" comment - I don't want VAR used to that kind of forensic level because it isn't accurate - the tech they have is not capable of producing precise stills to the nearest cm from moving images via cameras at the distance they are. Maybe you've got sucked in with your desire to see it kept as it is so will therefore robustly defend a process that doesn't give the results we're lead to believe it's capable of? I stated quite clearly what I want/would like to see - VAR used to cut out the howler. I couldn't have been any clearer. I don't want 'lines' drawn anywhere. If you're level, you're onside. Totally irrelevant if part of your body protrudes beyond the defender because there's no advantage gained and is not what the offside rule was introduced for. I've just seen one of the goals Leeds scored tonight. One replay was all it took. Offside, obvious to all in seconds. What that "solves" is the elimination of the forensic examination I've already covered as well as vastly speeding up the decision making process. Again - how have you interpreted that from my posts? I want the very opposite. There is no advantage to being 'offside' by a toenail/rizla paper so the kind of accuracy they are measuring what is on/off to is totally unnecessary. Nice use of reductio ad absurdum. You know full well what a howler is when a player is beyond a defender to a level where they have gained an unfair advantage. And everything 'qualifies' for review, it's the process they then use to determine the decision they make that I'm referring to. On the contrary, I can bat that back and say you could have saved yourself your detailed reply by just saying you're happy with forensic analysis of offside decisions because it meant Utd were saved. We're just debating a hot topic from opposite sides. Was that last bit necessary? Do you mean making the distance as short as you want to constitute a howler? Because the longer the distance, the more glaring it becomes. My position on it has never changed - has the forward gained an advantage? Yes or no is all I care about and is what offside was introduced for. If you need to put lines on a screen to see if some tiny part of a forward is beyond a defender, it's not a howler. If one replay shows in seconds he's clearly beyond the defender but wasn't given offside in real time, it is a howler. Foot/inch/both is splitting hairs. Level is onside, even if part of their body is leaning beyond. If they're standing beyond by any amount then that's far enough to have gained a minimal advantage. I don't believe that you can't differentiate between the two. I'm somebody that wants VAR to stay, which clearly you also want. But it is my opinion the level of precision they are using it for in order to determine off/onside is to an accuracy they don't have the technology capable of showing and isn't required anyway due to the 'advantage' point I've already covered. I'm not sure why this comes across as such a controversial take. Had we had the goal chalked off yesterday I'd be raging because of my belief in how the system is being incorrectly used; had it saved us I'd take it because that's what fans do. However, it wouldn't change my core principles on VAR and as an example if there was a future vote to change how it was used, I'd still go with my preferred way despite the opposite having 'saved' us on that occasion. Anyway, I've voiced my opinions and explained why I've come to the conclusions I have. You both disagree and that's fine. Ultimately we're in the same camp (I think but correct me if I'm wrong) for wanting VAR to remain, we just differ on the level to which they use it.
I agree, but I don't think it's as simple as you think. Would you let a 100m sprinter shift his hands 2mm across the line at the start? No, because it's against the rules. The laws of football say the forward must not be ahead of the defender (or something slightly more detailed). I don't see how you change the VAR mechanism at this point without introducing new overall football laws. The length of distance an attacker needs to be ahead to create an unfair advantage isn't definable. A cross into the penalty spot is different to a pass over the half way line. I'd say a forward coming back from offside when the ball is played to collect the ball 5m "onside" isn't gaining an unfair advantage, but it's currently the law. I think it's 1/50. But you're still getting a blur on a fast moving object like a footballer running at speed or a boot kicking a ball at 70mph. Any photographer knows a shutter speed of 1/50 isn't holding a sports image still at all.
We will see what difference this semi automated offside stuff bring. Not sure it's the worse and most controversial aspect of VAR though which says something though! It was hardly a shocker and reckon if that had been Man U there wouldn't be the same fuss at all.
I'm not sure Maidstone fans would agree with you ! I think it's still great for smaller clubs, which might include us in 3-5 years.
You've mentioned 'gaining an advantage' (or similar) several times here. But the offside law doesn't talk about gaining an advantage in the situation that arose in the Coventry game, where a ball was directly passed by a teammate to a player in an offside position. Gaining an advantage only applies to rebounds or receiving the ball from an opponent in the offside law. So is it that you want to re-write the offside law instead / as well?
The point is that the original reason for having an offside law at all was to penalise an attacking player who was seeking to gain an advantage by being in an offside position, i.e. goal hanging. The law now is insanely complicated, partly to fit in with VAR, to try and make each decision exact rather than have any degree of subjectivity. It’s just chasing an impossible ideal.
Speaking of VAR This is just a small snippet of the utter madness that goes on behind the scenes. You can hear all the messages being passed back to the referee. Draw this line, replay that. It's a total crap show.
What a joke the process is. Good example of the tech being absolutely spot on and a bunch of thick humans managing to still confirm the wrong decision.
Well they really did mess that one up as the VAR basically wasn’t aware of what had gone on . Sleeping on the job as they say . And once the ref re started there was nothing they could do even though the VAR guy soon realised what had gone on .
Hmmm I'm really not convinced this is backed up by fact, though I appreciate it's reflective of the type of stuff players, managers, former of both, pundits and commentators have come out with for years in their various attempts to explain the offside law or to criticise it. Just for fun I looked up the 1995 and 2005 laws of the game - IFAB has them on its website - and the offside law is essentially the same. The current version just has some extra definitions but the basics, including those that make the Coventry goal offside, are all there. I think it would have been offside in 1863 as well, if Wiki's definition of that is correct.
I read a book a few years ago (Malcom Gladwell - Outliers) that had a chapter that analysed aviation crashes and how culture and language was the biggest difference in preventing plane crashes (can read a little bit about the details here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...ht-214-crash-korean-airlines-culture-outliers). And how communication wasn't assertive, urgent and "without doubt" enough between pilots, co-pilots and control towers. I think this can be relevant to VAR as well. Instead of "check complete" they need to state what the decision is and ask all if that decision is right, that way you're removing that "without doubt" as not once did the VAR operators in that clip actually state what the VAR decision was.
The thread above mentions the FIFA Club World Cup, which will be held in the USA from June 15 to July 13 2025. Qualified teams so far Al-Hilal Urawa Red Diamonds Ulsan HD + one other Asian club Al Ahly Wydad Casablanca + 2 other African clubs Monterrey Seattle Sounders Leon + one other Concacaf club Palmeiras Flamengo Fluminense + 3 other South American clubs Auckland City Chelsea Man City Real Madrid Bayern Munich Paris St Germain Inter Porto Benfica Borussia Dortmund Juventus Atletico Madrid Red Bull Salzburg + One other US club as host representatives Blimey.
How do you qualify? No Arsenal, Liverpool or Barcelona. How long is the tournament with all these clubs with probably more to come. This is the reason they don't want facup replays
And this is exactly why the out-dated, parochial FA Cup should be cut to the bone as it clearly jeopardises the integrity of this type of prestigious tournament.
Think you have to be Champions league winners in a certain period so Liverpool miss out . But yes another money making exercise that fans, players and managers don’t want .
Champions League winners plus the best teams over the last 4 years in the Champions League, hence Salzburg get in (their best in the CL has been the last 16, but they are ever-presents over the last 4 years unlike Arsenal and Liverpool)
Perhaps my inability to not be able to explain in written form concisely or clearly enough is exposed on a message forum. I'm sure if we were talking we could make this conversation a lot shorter (whilst likely still disagreeing), so I'll leave it there and not spam up the thread with what is now 'old news', lol. One final point I'll quickly make - regardless of how they have decided to use it, for cup competitions I think it should either be used in all ties or none, not this 'use it where available' approach they've adopted. It's absurd to me that at the same stage of a competition you can have teams effectively playing under different rules.
I was puzzled why the National League didn't object to scrapping FA Cup replays. Now we know. A tinpot competition for Premier League U21 clubs and National League clubs is apparently being proposed. This really is the absolute pits. I know the National League is in a permanent state of difficulty. With the addition of North and South divisions, it's got too big, really, and the National League division is so full of ex-league clubs it's no longer really 'non-league'. I think Wealdstone are the highest-finishing part-time club, for example, and they are 16th. I love non-league football and make a few trips to Wealdstone a season. I can't think of a less appealing midweek fixture than watching them play Chelsea U21. PL clubs have already infected other levels of the game with their sterile, technical football. The only possible enjoyment to be gained from this sort of competition would be the prospect of seeing them being booted up in the air by some hairy-backed centre half who's just finished the day fixing drains. The EFL Trophy was never a massive competition, but it was always a pure one. The teams in the bottom two divisions fighting for a chance to get to Wembley. I take a passing interest in the results, and nearly went to the final a couple of weeks ago, but it doesn't feel like a proper competition until all the U21 teams are knocked out.
Is this going to change anything ? https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/fa-cup-replays-mirror-petition-32724637
