VARmageddon
Some friendly lessons in science and practicality.
Let’s just address it straight away, shall we? In Saturday’s FA Cup Final, this play, which resulted in a goal, was ruled as scorer Ben Chilwell being offside.
This miniscule shred of space is what won Leicester City the FA Cup. That, and the referee deciding that the ball that ricocheted off Ayoze Perez’s knee and into his arm directly before Youri Tielemans’ screamer was not, in fact, a handball. Now, the according to the laws of the game and the context of the game, both these calls are probably correct. Many competitions and FA’s own ruleset allow more leeway for balls that come off of player’s bodies when they have little to no time to react to such ricochets, as is clearly the case in the case of Perez. And as for the offside call, well, look at the line, I guess. If we’re using the line to do the offside calls, Chilwell is beyond the line. Them’s the breaks.
Except for one teensy problem with all that. Computer, enhance.
Where, exactly, is the ball here?
Is the ball still on the foot of the player, the last known point of impact between the foot and the expensive synthetic material? Is the ball already away, into space, as this elongated line suggests? Can we reasonably discern what is and is not the ball here, and what is and is not Thiago Silva’s white socks and boots?
These are the questions that keep Chelsea fans up at night, sure. And I have a feeling that there wasn’t as big an outcry for VAR after this one because, lol, it’s Chelsea. No one but Chelsea fans want to see Chelsea win, pretty much ever. Leicester are the feel-good story, or at least feel-better-than-Roman-Abramovich’s-team. But we come back to VAR, time and time again, until the Earth opens up and swallows whole into a hell of pixelated images, 1s and 0s coursing through our veins. There’s got to be a better way, right?
Well, yeah. There is. Take a look at MLS. Or the Bundesliga. Or several other places that use VAR. They’re not drawing lines on the field. They’re not making offside rulings with VAR at all unless there’s a very clear advantage gained by an attacker.
The problem with VAR being used for every miniscule chance of offside isn’t even the lines being drawn on the field and the use of a player’s shoulder being a millimeter or two ahead of a defender’s toe, or at least, it’s not the biggest problem to my eyes. The biggest problem is actually being able to stop a camera at the moment a ball leaves a player’s foot. Because, as you can clearly see, cameras can only get so close!
Futhermore, according to subatomic physics, nothing is actually touching anything else. Like, almost ever. The electrons in the atoms that make up your finger are being repelled by the electrons in the atoms that make up your cell phone, right now, but they are not, theoretically, touching. They’re still separated by an incredibly itty bitty space. Same goes for boot and ball. So if nothing is ever touching, by the laws of physics, Chilwell is onside. Sure, that’s a silly way of looking at it, but I contest that the laws of physics are no sillier than the Laws of the Game, if VAR has taught us absolutely anything.
I get it. We’re busy laughing at the Chelsea fans in our lives, laughing at Chilwell grabbing his badge in celebration after the Leicester fans booed his every touch when he came on in the final, only to see his goal disallowed. This doesn’t matter much. Besides, something is sure to change in the rules next year, anyway. Some fresh new hell of red tape and isometric camera angles awaits us. And as the world crumbles to dust around us, we’ll look back and say “remember when Leicester City won the FA Cup? Tielemans. Hell of a goal.” We will forget all about the goal that never was, except, I imagine, Ben Chilwell and some Chelsea fans.
Everything’s already on fire. Might as well just stop using VAR for offside calls measured in centimeters. Ok?
Stream Schedule
Three chances this week to see our bright and shining faces talk about the Women’s Champions League final, Alisson being the target striker Liverpool has always needed, previewing title races and survival fights, and getting into some watch parties.
MONDAY, MAY 17th: Live Show at 2:00 EST/11:00 PST. Come chat with us. We’ll bring you the news you need to know and even have a special guest interview.
TUESDAY, MAY 18th: Watch Party for Chelsea vs. Leicester City. Will Chelsea be able to stay in the top four and stave off Liverpool’s late charge? Will Leicester City, for that matter?
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19th: Watch party for Burnely vs. Liverpool, Monaco vs. PSG, and Atalanta vs. Juventus. Try not to get whiplash as we hop countries for a triple threat watch party.
USL Madness
We have to show some love to the various levels of USL this weekend, as the action really popped off. Our beloved Forward Madison brought the house down (literally):
But the lower league moment of the weekend belonged to Kings Hammer FC and center back (!) Karson Kendall for scoring the Goal of the Day. No, the Goal of the Day is not Alisson. Yes, it was a great header. This goal is better.
And one final lower league shout-out goes to Logan Ketterer, the El Paso Locomotive goalkeeper currently on loan to the Portland Timbers. The Timbers have three hurt goalkeepers and also 19-year-old Hunter Sulte on their roster, so Portland decided to go out and sign what is presumably their fourth-string goalkeeper to a loan. How did he do in his MLS debut? He stopped a penalty by the all-time leading league scorer and kept a clean sheet, of course.
Keeper Sleeper
We all saw the Alisson love-fest, so let’s look at the opposite of that now.
Here’s Alex Bono getting bailed out by Jesus Medina looking back and jumping up to block his punt out, because if he didn’t intentionally jump, that ball still would’ve hit him and that goal would’ve stood. Even this doesn’t compare, however, to the majesty that was Houston goalkeeper Marko Maric just begging Cole Bassett to block this clearance.
Sorry guys.
A History Lesson
If you’ve been following American soccer for any length of time, you probably know that when Michael Lewis writes something, you should read it. And this is certainly the case with this feature on Betty Ellis, the first American woman to officiate a men’s professional match.
Also, there was a team that existed named “the Calgary Boomers,” which makes this article worth it just for that, in my opinion.