MLS VAR

[BenFisk'sBiggestFan]

VAR is starting to ruin games. Soccer is a flowing game. There are high tension moments and low tension moments. You see it all the time in games in Europe. A hand to the face in a big scrum is something different than a hand to the face randomly. Officials need to be able to feel the pace and tension in a game and calm players down rather than stare at a screen for their decisions. VAR has been brought in for clear and obvious errors. But it is being used for things that shouldn’t be a game changer. 

I say all this generally about the MLS as a whole. Not this specific game. I am not enjoying watching MLS this year. Nearly every game I have watched has had a red card. And often for things that really don’t have much effect on the game. Being an official myself, it is so important for the official to control the game. That means, in a giant scrum, you don’t give cards to everyone. You talk to captains, you card the aggressor, and you think rationally.

I think VAR should be used for what it was designed for: clear and obvious error. Something like a dangerous tackle, penalty kick, or goal. I like the whole red card thing, but the officials are not handling it properly.

 

i want to know your guys opinions on VAR. Am I alone in thinking that it hasn’t been implemented right?

[jpg75]

VAR is a god send. I would rather wait a minute or two for the refs to get it right than having my team get shafted by some cheating cunts.

[AvroArrow]

With video replay becoming so common in all sports, I have no problem with VAR as long as it it is used in a timely fashion.  Penalty kicks and red cards are both potentially game changing events in a soccer game.  If I have to wait 1 or 2 minutes to make sure the call is correct, I'm all for it.

[1996]

The more VAR the better in a low scoring sport like soccer one goal can decide a game and to have a bad call made that might lead to a goal go unnoticed is hard to accept. Therefore when a call can be overturned because of VAR it makes the game more legitimate. How many times over the years have for example goals been called back because of a bad offside call or a goal has stood that was clearly offside and that goal was the goal that decided the game and worse it was the only goal of the game, moreover, you watch the replay and you see that is was offside or it was not offside , you have now invested all that time to watch a game decided on a goal that either should have stood or it should not have stood but because of no VAR in the past nothing could be done which was sad. It's 2018 it was time thank God for VAR I say.

[Grizzly]

I think VAR can be good but it seems like the MLS refs are so astonishingly bad that they often make even worse calls using VAR than when they are just calling the game on the pitch. Reffing is hard but how can MLS refs be this bad for this long? Even CONCACAF reffing has improved but MLS reffing is still as bad and amateur as it ever was. It makes one not want to watch MLS games because so often they are decided by the reffing not the teams playing as we saw quite clearly this weekend.

[AvroArrow]

8 hours ago, Grizzly said:

I think VAR can be good but it seems like the MLS refs are so astonishingly bad that they often make even worse calls using VAR than when they are just calling the game on the pitch. Reffing is hard but how can MLS refs be this bad for this long? Even CONCACAF reffing has improved but MLS reffing is still as bad and amateur as it ever was. It makes one not want to watch MLS games because so often they are decided by the reffing not the teams playing as we saw quite clearly this weekend.

I think fans across the globe share your opinion, regardless of the league.  Even more so when the team they support is the team aggrieved. 

Soccer, by its nature, is a tough sport to ref.  The playing surface and the amount of players are both large, and the game attracts physical contact by opponents (this isn't volleyball).  Basketball and hockey both have much smaller surfaces and amount of players, and have roughly the same amount of officials.  American football practically has as many refs as a team has players on the field.

And when you add the fact that soccer has a culture that accepts fooling the ref as a valid tactic, then things get even tougher.  Its one thing to have your local beer league ref make a bad call because he is woefully out of shape and doesn't leave the centre of the field.  Its another when you have two teams full of professionals playing soccer at high speed, with high levels of aggression, and will take every opportunity to con the ref.

I think VAR is great.

[Keegan]

Sometimes VAR has given the refs the opportunity to make a bad call worse!  Case in point was a few weeks ago with LAFC how about the Almiron penalty late on?  He pushes the ball past the defender and into touch then dives.. he wins a corner in error and jogs happily to take it. Now they use VAR and say it’s a pk. So we went from a ref making a bad call to making a horrible call after watching the replay.. like you can’t make this up.

for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.  This is possibly the worst call I’ve ever seen in mls and with the help of var https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2018-04-07-atlanta-united-fc-vs-los-angeles-football-club/details/video/148287

 

overall I think it’s needed and it’s possible but not with incompetent/corrupt refs. 

[shamrock]

VAR could be useful but it sure as hell isn't the end-all solution to bad calls.

When do you use it, how long do you go back in play? are just 2 of the questions that should be asked before implementing this. Once you call offside, do you go back and check it (what if it was't, award a goal?). Cause they do it the ter way around (when there's a goal, they check if it wasn't offside, therefor why not check the offside call?) 

Even if all of this is clear, lot's of decisions are still judgment calls, I've seen penalties given for putting a hand on another players shoulder, yet I've seen this lot's to times when it's not considered a faul at all. 

And I agree with Grizz on this one, MLS refs are some of the worse in the world, no matter the help they get. 

[Gian-Luca]

TFC got VAR’d to death this afternoon. Nikolic clearly offside on Schweinsteiger goal and involved with the play and they decide not to even bother to have the Ref review. 

[Obinna]

I get why people want it, but honestly I miss the game without it already. 

I just hate when someone is offside by a whisker and the ref stops the game for like 5 minutes to absolutely positively make sure it is the "right call". 

Stop killing the fun and let the game go on. If the ref misses a call here or there, so what? They are human!

Hand of God goals and the like, sure, but they at least should chill with the offsides, unless somebody is like 2 or 3 yards offside. That is CLEAR and OBVIOUS.

Clear and obvious has already lost it's meaning as far as VAR is concerned....I am sad for the state of soccer with this video review

[Gian-Luca]

Apparently Vanney and Bradley tore the Refs and VAR to pieces in their post match comments. Not sure exactly what they said because I’m sitting in the stadium still about to watch TFC 2

[jpg75]

1 hour ago, Obinna said:

I get why people want it, but honestly I miss the game without it already. 

I just hate when someone is offside by a whisker and the ref stops the game for like 5 minutes to absolutely positively make sure it is the "right call". 

Stop killing the fun and let the game go on. If the ref misses a call here or there, so what? They are human!

Hand of God goals and the like, sure, but they at least should chill with the offsides, unless somebody is like 2 or 3 yards offside. That is CLEAR and OBVIOUS.

Clear and obvious has already lost it's meaning as far as VAR is concerned....I am sad for the state of soccer with this video review

Would you be saying that if Canada or Nigeria were knocked out of WCQ because their opponent got away with a goal that should have been called back?

[Jith12]

17 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

Would you be saying that if Canada or Nigeria were knocked out of WCQ because their opponent got away with a goal that should have been called back?

Am I missing something here?

[yomurphy1]

It's terrible at the game because you have no reference and a time lag until the referee makes a decision. 

From my perspective TFC's first goal looked offside, the second one called back did not,  the penalty was borderline, and then the referee not using it for Chicago's goal was an absolute crime which was later confirmed on the jumbotron. 

[jpg75]

54 minutes ago, Jith12 said:

Am I missing something here?

Obinna also supports Nigeria.

[gator]

I had an open mind about VAR until I've seen it in use extensively in MLS, yes some calls are correctly overturned but it just kills the flow of the match, maybe if the refs were better at getting the original calls right there would be less need for it?

[Bdog]

Fuck VAR

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, gator said:

I had an open mind about VAR until I've seen it in use extensively in MLS, yes some calls are correctly overturned but it just kills the flow of the match, maybe if the refs were better at getting the original calls right there would be less need for it?

The need is there and it is fine in principle, it needs to be used better and more consistently  than it was at the game today. By my estimation they got 75% of the VAR calls wrong although I would like to see a better angle on the disallowed TFC goal. They shouldn't even have needed VAR to realize the 1st Chicago was offside given how obvious it was!

[gator]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

The need is there and it is fine in principle, it needs to be used better and more consistently  than it was at the game today. By my estimation they got 75% of the VAR calls wrong although I would like to see a better angle on the disallowed TFC goal. They shouldn't even have needed VAR to realize the 1st Chicago was offside given how obvious it was!

I thought the disallowed TFC goal was about the only thing they got right!

[Obinna]

57 minutes ago, jpg75 said:

Would you be saying that if Canada or Nigeria were knocked out of WCQ because their opponent got away with a goal that should have been called back?

If that happened to Nigeria or Canada, especially Canada, I would be absolutely furious. Hell I was furious when Hutchinson had a goal called back in the GC 07 semi final. But that was a clear and obvious error right? Because it came off an American player and fell into Atiba’s path.

An extremely close offsides call is not clear and obvious. I feel players appeal to the ref, as they do with every narrow offsides call, and then the ref decides to go to VAR.  

That is wrong and should never be. I would like them to only use VAR when someone is like a mile offsides.

After all, the purpose of offsides is to prevent attackers from an unfair advantage, or being on the suck as some would call it. But those tight calls that could go either way do not give an unfair advantage, because they are so marginal. So I am okay if those calls go against my team. You win some, you lose some.

Anyways, I hate to see VAR for those and i hope they stop using it so liberally in such situation.

[shamrock]

Yeah I'd prefer them not using VAR for offsides at all. If there's an offside goal, they go back and check it. But if the offside is called, do they ever? That is not fair IMO. 

[jpg75]

Roma officials want VAR brought into Champions League. Currently in use in Serie A, didn't know that...

https://www.tsn.ca/an-absolute-joke-roma-fumes-over-refs-1.1074675

[Gian-Luca]

I haven't seen highlights of any of the plays Roma is referring to, but as much as I would have liked to have happened, I don't think VAR would have made a difference for that call against Juventus in the Q-F. It wasn't a "clear and obvious error" IMO. I would hope that the standard of VAR officiating though is higher for Serie A and will be for the World Cup than what we've seen in MLS thus far (in all the kerfuffle about the incorrect calls in the TFC game, there were two other dubious VAR uses last weekend in the KC-NE game and also the LA Galaxy-NYRB game).

 

[jpg75]

I think the key in this thread is that MLS refs suck. If you have Serie A, UCL or WC refs using VAR then it should be more effective.

[Club Linesman]

VAR has been a disaster in MLS.  I agree that the level of refereeing is the problem.  In reality most of the people on this forum could review the plays (like Chicago's first goal Fri) and make the appropriate decision in less than a minute.  Properly supervised and used VAR would be great - so far it has been horrible.