World Cup General Discussion Thread - 2030 The Jokes On You

That’s a pretty good outcome for Spain. Gives them an extra day off before the next round and puts them in the opposite side of the draw to Brazil now.

 

I thought Costa Rica played quite well today. Sure, Germany made a lot of great chances, but Costa Rica did too. It could have gone the other way as well. Considering how clueless they looked for large parts of the match against Spain, I've been quite impressed how they managed to come back from that.

 

Souness banging on about no pictures even though they keep showing the angle that clearly shows the ball was still in play.

 

Not to mention that if any of the idiots in the studio or in the production looked online, they’d find a crystal clear still picture that ends the argument completely. Still, Souness is employed for these nonsensical froth at the mouth sessions.

 

Punishment for pushing back on FIFA over the rainbow armbands. Definite stitch up, they’re photoshopping the goal line camera footage right now.





I don’t really think that.

 

England’s potential route is Senegal, France, Spain, Brazil/Argentina.

If they beat that lot, forget a knighthood for Southgate, make him president of the world.

 

Exactly what I was saying. They were looking for the picture that proved it was "out" when that image does not exist.

Angle from gantry camera looks way over the line but it's an optical illusion. We had a goal not given by Foresteiri a few years ago not given that some on here got hugely irate about but I thought it was the same.

 

Souness also banging on about the decision costing Germany a spot in the knockout stages. Did I miss a second Spanish goal?

 

Senegals route to World cup glory is England France Spain Argentina/Brazil.

Sarr will still come back and be average if he wins the world cup and Golden Boot.

 

RIP.

 

Proof if it were needed and that's not even in line:. Great decision.

 

He had his knickers in a twist after declaring Spain champions elect at half time

 

"But if you show the other angle it's clearly out of play" Souness and ITV, 01/12/22.

 

I admire Costa Rica a lot as a team. Apart from Navas, they have a really poor team on paper, but they always show good fight. Their 2014 run was one of my favourite WC memories in the last 20 years or so.

 

The Japan goal line decision and the reaction from pundits and on social media is a fascinating example of how people will argue until they’re blue in the face despite not knowing what they are talking about. The picture evidence (from the irrelevant angle) is compelling, and appears to make it clear to anyone with common sense that the ball was out. But then the actual law, the relevant camera angle from directly above, and the way physics works proves wrong the simplistic “eye” test.

 

Japan to win World Cup ????? Place Your Bets NOW!!!!!!!

 

Or the Simplistic Souness Testing.

 

The W@nkfest over Spain at half time was embarrassing. Souness questioning the whole mindset and application of UK footballers. Then Spain implode in the second half. LOL. There's no absolute right way or wrong way you numpty. If there was then every country and every team would be trying to emulate it. I seriously wonder, due to his current health issues, that he might suffer a cardiac arrest, or a stroke, or even peg out completely if England do very well in this tournament.

 

I thought the ball looked in even from the gantry angle. It’s by a very small margin but did appear not 100% of the ball was over the line. Couldn’t believe all the foaming at the mouth after the game, especially Souness implying corruption.
Save that for when England are on the receiving end of a Poland like penalty decision. You know it’s coming.

 

Let's face it, VAR is utter bulls**t. We all knew it 3-4 years ago, but now on the biggest stage decisions are still wrong/over scrutinises yet injustices still happen. I was prepared to accept the "it's just being used incorrectly" argument, but it's just not going to happen. The incorrect decisions are even more infuriating when you can't use having slow motion from multiple different angles as an excuse.

 

Spain are unstoppable.

 

I'm loathe to agree. I hated the old system of being ****ed over by a dodgy penalty or a clearly offside goal, missed by a fat linesman who didn't keep up with play, but the cost has become far too high.

There's no immediate celebration from making the onion sack bulge. Instead it's staring at the scoreboard and ref for 2 minutes and celebrating at his signal.

Goals chalked off for extremly pedantic and technical reasons, the persistence of injustice due to human bias made no better by elapsed time.

Sadly the VAR experiment has failed.

 

We need the technology to be able to review the decisions made by VAR. If VAR makes a controversial decision it can be reviewed by this panel who then send a message to the VAR team and ask them to revisit their assessment. It’s the only way. The referee can alter his original decision based on VAR, and then be called back again to reassess his assessment of the VAR decision. Simple really but very necessary.

 

Why, what are his current health issues?

 

The good thing with VAR at least is that things like the Henry handball against Ireland are now impossible, but really that’s all it should be for, correcting massive errors.

 

Penalty decisions, and others like sendings off, are always going to be subjective, VAR or no VAR. The problem has always been people not being prepared to accept the referee’s decisions. They thought VAR would fix this, but it never will and its implementation is detrimental to the game.

 

Exactly this – many of the laws and by-laws of the game and their implementation are entirely subjective. What is 'persistent fouling'? It's not a specific number of fouls or a number of fouls in a certain period of time. It's left to the referee's discretion.

The clamour for VAR was created by years of pundits insisting that these decisions 'had to be right' and a false belief that technology would remove all ambiguity.

The great irony is that last night, if the assistant referee had flagged what he saw he'd probably have given the ball out of play when the Japan player crossed it. But the assistants and referees are now instructed to wait, let play unfold and either make a decision after the phase of play or leave it to VAR.

Now that VAR has the technology to determine to the millimetre whether the whole ball was over the whole line or not, we're back to fans on armchairs pointing at a picture and going "That's clearly out". So it turns out that we possibly didn't really want VAR after all.

Having said that, FIFA would have made it all a lot simpler if the overhead angle had been available sooner. When it's an actual goal line decision there's also the 3D graphic, which helps the public understand.

There's also the fallacy that VAR is only important for 'the big decisions' (copyright all pundits). Football is a game of a million decisions and all of them influence the play. Players who've been involved on the losing side in matches that have subsequently been found to be fixed talk about how the pressure built against them because corrupted officials gave dozens of small, seemingly inconsequential decisions against them – not because they gave an outrageously dodgy penalty.

 

Where’s the dividing line between massive error and not? As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I was shocked to see an offside decision suddenly be defined by the traditional English dotted lines on the screen for the referee to review. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been done like that all tournament as offside simply isn’t subjective enough for the referee to go and review.

Also, it really is high time for people to stop viewing VAR as some sort of all encompassing entity and realise that there’s a referee sitting there making questionable decisions. Just like always.