Unfortuently VAR has made the game far more controversial and frustrating. Before when there was a miss it was easy to say it was missed by the ref or linesman and they had to go with their instinct for calls related to handballs or the like. Sure it was frustrating when a peno was given against us or a goal got ruled out but it felt like you got as many as you gave and it was a hell of a talking point. With VAR, they spend 5 mins looking at it and still rule against common sense which makes it way worse. How many times has a goal been scored and then the dreaded VAR notification comes up only for it to be disallowed for something so slight or so much further back in play. I think the ones where they get the lines out to check for offside is beyond ridiculous.
With VAR in place for a while now, when we score a goal, my first thought isn’t to hit the ceiling and yell out, my first though is now was there anything wrong with that goal. It really has changed the feel of the game. I actually felt sick after the Newcastle game and I was thinking I would have rather not watched it tbh which says something.
I think one of the things that differentiates football from most other sports is it’s purity and simplicity. All you need is a ball and two (semi) working feet. By introducing technology like VAR, you’re removing the fundamental aspect of why people enjoy the game and frankly, I can’t fucking stand it.
I've banged on about this before but you're right that it's particularly sickening when the lines come out and they're trying to assess millimetres of difference.
I won't say exactly what but I have a science background and as far as experimental measurements go (you could treat VAR offside decisions like that TBH) it would be
bad science. If you wrote a report and presented those offside calls as absolute 'fact', you would look ridiculous and someone would rightfully be asking about every single contribution of measurement error.
Simply put:
- what's the resolution of the image used?
- what's your frame rate?
- given this frame rate, when did the ball leave the last passer's foot?
I can't put it any other way than it's men in a box using noticeably imperfect tools to produce a perfect decision. There should totally be an option for 'inconclusive' that gives the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. It's what the offside rule used to aim to do by eye and is within the spirit of the game. We all know the kind of egregious offsides that have been missed before VAR and those would be picked up conclusively without a doubt.
And that's not even going into how bullshit and lucky (or unlucky) players can be with offside depending upon the exact moment in their stride the image is taken (despite their centre of gravity being identically aligned to the opponent).
There seems to be something uniquely fucked about the FA that any decisions they make recently are backfiring spectacularly. The irony of the new handball rule is that I'm sure someone suggested it would help referees by giving them a surefire way of coming to a judgement - and yet there surely can't have been a consultation period on it because any manager, player, or poster on this forum could have told them exactly what kind of Pandora's Box would be opened.