Off Topic: Soccer and NASCAR

[Fraquar]

Footy, Soccer, Rugby and Hockey are all very similar sports. Their games are intended to flow, with stoppages kept to the absolute minimum. Shit, they don't even stop the play to change lines in Hockey, it happens on the fly. Instant Replay at any level is an immediate threat to turn that sport into a slog sport like Baseball and Football - two sports where vastly more time is spent doing absolutely nothing than actually making a play.

[froot loops]

I don't like when they award handballs in the penalty box by talking about the arm being in an unnatural position when they are lunging to try and kick the ball. Trying to kick a ball with your arms stapled to your side like an Irish Dancer is unnatural.

VAR has been bad in this World Cup, it wasn't bad like this in the Champions League. They are a little to eager to give away a PK in my opinion. In all sports I am in favor of only overturning the most obvious errors. In today's France/Brazil game, VAR blew it by taking away a French goal, but made the correct call in awarding a goal for Brazil initially called offside. The Brazil goal was the way it should work, it was onside and it took 20 seconds tops. If your replay system is not close to 100 percent then it is not worth the trouble.

[Fraquar]

That is the underlying problem I have with VAR - it should NEVER give a goal scoring opportunity (penalty kick) in the first place. That is a call the referee makes on the field, and if they are told to continually swallow their whistle because VAR will sort it out in the end anyway - it's just horribly bad for the game - and the worst environment you can put anyone in that you EXPECT to make the correct decisions in a timely manner. For both the integrity of the game and the safety of the players.

[froot loops]

I have no issue if they give.away a PK on an obvious hand ball that the ref missed but they are going way too far in this World Cup in awarding penalty kicks. I do agree that instructing the refs to swallow the whistle to let replay figure it out is stupid.

[Fraquar]

Problem with handballs though is the same problem with interpreting the rules in the NFL - no two people agree on the terms "unnatural position" and there is disagreement on if the defender initiated the contact or was in a position where he couldn't have possibly gotten out of the way even if he wanted to. The ball simply striking an arm isn't enough to award a penalty by itself by definition - there is additional interpretation that has to happen. IMO, if neither the referee or his linesman see it, or they don't deem it as being a penalty if they do - it simply shouldn't be called.

My other fundamental problem with VAR is the angles they review from. If they aren't reviewing it from the very same angle (and only angle) that the people expected to make the call on the field had, and in real time speed like the official did - it shouldn't be used. VAR should be used to correct something the referees obviously should have caught but didn't - not make a call from an angle, under a microscope and spend 5 minutes the referee never had to begin with.

Soccer is a sport where the only significant even is when the ball goes in the net - those should be reviewed for obvious reasons. Everything else, meh.

[chemiclord]

Replay that corrects obviously blown calls on the field should be the ideal.

You get two minutes, any video angles that can be provided, and no frame-by-frame slow motion. Anything that survives that scrutiny stands as called.

There, I fixed replay in sports.

[froot loops]

Under my installation of VAR there wouldn't be many penalty kicks awarded that weren't seen on the field originally. They would be rare, but then again I think the handball rule is ridiculously punitive. Some of the issues in the World Cup is less about VAR and more about how they want things called in the box whether it is a handball or something deemed reckless. They are using VAR way too much for stringent calls in the box area that previously a ref would have let slide.

You watch a season of the Premier League and you'll see.some obvious misses that VAR would have been nice to have but it isn't that many times. But if you add it then what happens is it works for those obvious ones and brings in many more that aren't obvious at all. It's similar to the NFL catch rule, it was brought in to remedy a certain type of problem and it ended up creating a lot more problems than it was worth.

[chemiclord]

Well, the NFL catch rule became such a clusterfuck less because of the stupid calls, and more the NFL changing the rule book every time rather than simply admitting the refs fucked up. It was a remedy to a problem they made that didn't have to exist at all.

[Fraquar]

All I know is they simply can't use this level of review in the EPL it would turn the game into a farce. Think flopping is disgustingly bad in the EPL now, don't even consider giving VAR power to call penalties from them. That needs to be the exclusive domain of the referee on the field, or literally there goes the neighborhood.

[Marko69]

[froot loops]

The US needs to get by France. They can't start the game with Horan on the bench. If they don't want to sit Mewes, Horan can play attack that's her natural position.

[Marko69]

[Fraquar]

That is a pretty good battle on that U.S. left side. Dunn is holding her own, and she's got her hands full for sure.

[froot loops]

Ellis is outthinking herself with Horan.

[Marko69]