I couldn't enjoy seeing all that incredible talent going to waste. Argentina were an absolute shambles and it's the federation's fault (not the manager who inherited a shambles and certainly not the players) - although it would be wonderful to see Iceland make it out of the group, if it's not going to be Kane lifting the trophy it would have been a magical moment to watch Messi lift it. He has given us a decade of awe inspiring football but his light is fading and he could be a bit part player in 2022 like Maradona was in '94, so for him particularly I feel quite sad that this may be the end of his World Cup story. The group is not done yet but even if they progress I can't see Argentina growing into the tournament. Croatia - a couple of wonderful players in Modric and Rakitic but if they make it to the latter stages it will only be because the superpowers are misfiring.
Croatia always seem to be the perennial dark horses, don't they? They do have a strong and talented midfield, and I think they can make the quarter finals, providing they avoid France in the first knockout round. Croatia's off-the-field corruption issues with their national FA (and players like Modric dragged into it) has not seemed to affect the national team, even though some of the country are not supporting their national team. I am surprised Argentina have struggled. I didn't think they had a strong enough squad to win the tournament as their defensive options look weak, aside from Otamendi. I thought they would at least make the quarters, but they've got a challenge to get out of the group now. They look completely unorganised and chaotic on the pitch last night. The buck will stop with the manager, and apparently the players want him replaced before the Nigeria match. I feel bad for Messi, but he was anonymous last night and missed a crucial penalty in the opening group game against Iceland. The comparisons seem inevitable, but the contrast between current Golden Boot frontrunner, Ronaldo, and the ineffective Messi is surprising. While I'll always argue that Messi is the technically better player, I think Ronaldo is mentally superior and his desire to never settle for defeat is really benefiting Portugal this tournament (and indeed two years ago, when they won EURO 2016).
If you've followed their qualifying, it won't be a surprise.. and the constant chopping and changing of managers, tactics and players is what is hampering them. The difference is Messi has a natural talent that we have only ever seen in a handful of footballers (Pele, Maradona, Eusebio, Waghorn).. Ronaldo is a machine whose discipline and work ethic has gradually taken him to the top. Portugal are built around Ronaldo, Argentina are hindering Messi - so I don't think you can compare them at this tournament.
I was aware that they qualified in their last match, following a Messi hat-trick. My point is that Jorge Sampaoli has had over a year and 13 games in charge of Argentina now and he should at least have a settled starting eleven and an idea of how they want to play. The fact that he started Javier Mascherano (34) and Enzo Perez (32) in the middle of midfield, two defensive midfielders who created nothing and were frequently overrun, should sound warning alarms for their final match against Nigeria. This Argentina side has no footballing identity and couldn't string together any decent moves, despite the abundance of attacking riches they possess. They are trying to build their attacks and identity around Messi, and that is clearly not working. The blame should ultimately reside with the players, who didn't look remotely fired up for this game and their subsequent heavy defeat was thoroughly deserved. I think a comparison between the two players is entirely valid, considering they are both the leading attacking players for their national teams and both have the ability to single-handedly affect a football match. I'm not a big fan of Ronaldo's, but he stepped up and scored a hat-trick in the opening draw against Spain and then scored the only goal of the game in the win over Morocco. Messi, on the other hand, has a missed penalty and two below average performances under his belt. This Argentina side are meant to be built around Messi, their manager has openly admitted to trying to find formations and playing styles that bring out the best of their star player, and it's the reason why proven goal machines like Higuan and Dybala are left on the bench. It's also a reason why Messi is the number one penalty taker, despite a poor record from the spot (four converted penalties from his last nine). I agree that Messi is being hindered by some poor performances around him and a very turgid looking central midfield, but Messi has been unable to exert his influence on the games so far this tournament and for a player of his ability and reputation, he has to take a portion of the blame for that.
What are people's opinions on VAR so far? I can see why it has been divisive, particularly when it slows down a game and gets applied inconsistently by referees. Regarding last night, it wasn't VAR's fault that Iran got a dodgy penalty, it was the referee who had a poor game. I do enjoy how the MOTD pundits moaned about it and then saw how VAR correctly flagged an error to award Spain's goal (giving them top spot which they otherwise would have missed). They sort of shrugged it off, poor punditry. I think it's been generally more beneficial, and on balance has corrected poor decisions and provided the referee with the right tools to improve the standard of refereeing. From an entertainment perspective, it has also contributed to more goals and defenders are realising that they have got to improve their defensive performance. It still has some kinks to iron out (must be boring in the stadium, waiting for the ref to make a call, or maybe it adds to the excitement and drama?) I'd actually wouldn't mind seeing it implemented in the Championship and other English leagues, the standard of refereeing in this country is as low as I can remember, so they need all the help they can get. This World Cup has, so far, been a marked improvement on the previous two.
Not happy about it at all. I don't care if the decisions are right or wrong - it tended to even itself out and the best team tended to win. Now nearly all the games are being decided by penalties and it's no test of skill. The golden boot will be whoever scores the most penalties. Against Panama for two of the goals I didnt jump up and down or celebrate the goal because there were tight offside decisions. Before we would look for the flag and if it wasnt raised when we looked across we could celebrate. Now we dont know if the goal stands until the game is restarted. And if we still get bad decisions, and we are getting a lot of them, the whole thing is a complete waste of time whether youre for or against it in theory. VAR ruins over a century of sportsmanship. Changes used to be made once per decade - penalty shoot outs, substitutes, etc. Now every season there are new rules and interpretations for the sake of it. In a wider context the offside rule is also broken. Serbia are surely going home due to a dreadful VAR decision. Why isnt it working? The answer is that it puts refs under more pressure and stress - because they now have to answer for every decision - so their judgement is impaired.
In my opinion anything that adds complication to the game detracts from it,much of the beauty of the Beautiful Game is its simplicity.Too much stop/start and we’ll be dragged into the slow realm of Rugby,American football and cricket.Refs make mistakes,it’s a given and we can bitch about them, but so do players,you just have to live with them.The rules of football should be consistent from grass level all the way up,are we expecting VAR to eventual be rolled out in schoolboy footie? Just my 2d worth.
Over the course of a season, yes. Over the course of a knock out tournament, no. Fair enough, but all of our goals were legitimate. With the assistance of VAR, the referee correctly awarded us two penalties following some overly-physical, poor defending from Panama. Pushing and pulling players to the ground when you're defending a set piece is considered a foul. Before VAR, and the stated crackdown on that behaviour for this tournament, defenders got away with it. Now, they will have to actually defend and not resort to cynical fouls. One of the reasons for the increase in penalties is down to VAR, of course, but I think it's stamping down on the poor state of defending in the game. Watching countries defend set pieces have been particularly entertaining to watch. While the standard of defending has been poor this tournament, it makes it all the better for the watching neutral. VAR is there to assist the referee, not to dictate decisions. Yes, there are some bad decisions. Even with VAR, there will always be bad decisions. It's about limiting the amount of them. But again, I'd reiterate that poor defending like that is not a fault of VAR but a fault of the declining standard of top-level defending in football. VAR has correctly overruled incorrect refereeing decisions, such as the 'offside' goal against Morocco last night, correctly overturning the penalty awarded against Neymar, and Iran's 'goal' against Spain correctly being ruled out (to name but a few). The time it takes to consult is often quite short (the officials with VAR are in continuous discussion with the referee during the game), my issue is when the ref goes off the field to consult with the screen. They need to work on that element because it does lead to a long stoppage. One referee took about three minutes to come to his decision in a match a couple of days ago. He reached the right decision, but work needs to be done around the timing. Seriously? You think we have much sportsmanship in the game today? And you think VAR has ruined it? Sportsmanship has been largely eroded from football since it turned professional and became all about the money. Look at rugby union for a more recent example of an amateur game going professional (back in the 90s). Now even rugby players, previously considered paragons of sport, have been more vocal against referees because there is more riding on the game. As for only limiting a change every season, I think that's too restrictive and reductive. New technology is there to be used. Goal line technology and a change in the offside rule happened within a few years, should we waited ten years between those decisions? Were those wrong innovations to implement? My opinion regarding VAR is that it is generally more beneficial to referees, but clearly needs some work to make it more consistently applied and clearer to players and fans. The first thing I'd recommend is miking up the refs and the officials in the VAR room so that all communication is transparent. Serbia are not going home due to a dreadful VAR decision, they are going home because of a poor refereeing decision. A poor ref may struggle with VAR, a good referee will use its benefits and improve to standard of officiating in that match. In my opinion, bar last night's Portugal vs Morocco match, and a couple of other isolated incidents, the standard of refereeing at this tournament has been relatively high and a majority of the big decisions have been made correctly, assisted by VAR.
Fair enough Bigal. I don't think we should be adverse to change, as the recent changes to the offside law and the implementation of goal line technology recently proved, there are improvements to make to football. I think we need a more accessible, streamlined version of VAR. Love it or hate it, the standard of officiating has been so poor lately that big decisions have cost teams points. With the amount of money and competition involved in the game, teams have to be comfortable that referees have the necessary tools and support to get the big calls right, especially if there is the technology out there to help them. VAR won't be used in the Premier League this coming season, but I strongly believe it will be used for 2019/20, hopefully when some of the kinks have been ironed out. While the ref is in communication with VAR officials, I would cut out the need for the referee to consult the TV screen and limit the use of VAR to incorrect goals and the clear award / non award of penalty kicks.
And while we're on VAR, I truly think that for offside decisions and violent conduct, it has been brilliant this tournament. Where it struggles is with penalty decisions because what does or does not constitute a penalty is subjective, and so officials are interpreting incidents in the box inconsistently. What constitutes a clear handball and not 'ball to hand', has never been conclusively resolved. Following VAR and this tournament, I hope FIFA will step up and set out clearer rules on what fouls should result in penalties.
Nuggets, I agree there have been (and needed to be)changes in the rules over time and they were all introduced to resolve a demonstrable problem. The offside rule sprung, of course, from the need to eradicate goal hanging. But it has been tinkered with over the years and is more complicated than it needs to be to solve the problem it was intended for. I see goal line technology as a far more simple and worthwhile adaptation (although I can't see it filtering down to park footie any time soon!) The whole VAR thing strikes me as a way of making up for the fact that refs and assistant refs just aren't good enough and we've seen how ,with VAR, they have a let out from making difficult decisions. Anyway it all makes good talking points!
Nuggets... the ref wasn't even alerted to the foul on Mitrovic. We have seen that linesmen and refs are not stopping the game when they see an infringement.. they are allowing the game to continue until VAR have alerted to an incident. The other problem with VAR, which Gary Neville has made a big point of, is that there are dozens of angles and only one of those angles may prove conclusively whether there was any contact, while from another perspective there may appear to have been. The ref is dependent on the right angle being fed to him, and in 30 seconds you'd need an army of video operatives - it's not always happening. I believe the human brain is such a powerful computer itself... as well as their eyes, refs have instincts and are able to read reactions and faces and context. VAR is not helping come to the right decision for fouls. We are not seeing the correct decisions for red cards. It is only helping with offsides, so if we have it at all we should keep it just for that and mistaken identity. Goal line technology is different - it's a no brainer. As for knock out tournaments - Can you tell me of any time how often the final of a major knock out tournament was decided by a poor refereeing decision? Much more likely that the World Cup final will be decided by a dodgy VAR decision.
Yorkie, it's the subjectivity of penalty decisions which is causing the most controversy around VAR, in my opinion. It is clear that if VAR is to continue in football, and I think the powers-that-be will ultimately decide to continue using VAR in the big competitions, then the laws of football need to be made clearer for officials going forward. What constitutes a hand ball? The penalty last night was soft and should not have been allowed, but then I thought the penalty Denmark conceded against Australia was a hand ball, because the defender's arm was wildly stretched out. I believe VAR should still be there for referees to consult in the event of a foul. In the Peru vs France game, the referee was going to book the wrong player, but VAR stepped in and he correctly booked the right player following a quick consultation. I do believe the standard of refereeing has deteriorated as the players have got faster, particularly in England, reflected by the fact there is not a single English official at this World Cup. To name one, the 1990 World Cup Final. A terrible, boring final that was settled by the referee wrongly sending off an Argentinian when Klingsmann dived and pretended to be hurt. After that, the Germans got a dodgy penalty to score the only goal of the final, leading to them winning the tournament. A referee with VAR would have corrected both decisions. I will also mention the 2010 World Cup Final, as it's more recent although the wrong decision did not affect the result (although the match went into extra time). Remember when Nigel De Jong avoided a red card for a studs up challenge on Alonso. Howard Webb said after match that his view was partially obstructed, but after seeing replays, he would have sent De Jong off. Spain went on to win after extra time, but could have lost the match. If you opened it up to include knock out games other than Finals, then you'd have a host of controversies that would've been reverted. The most notable one for England is Maradona's handball in 1986 and Sol Campbell's disallowed goal (also against Argentina) in 1998.
Great drama again last night, what a tournament! I didn't really want Argentina to go through, but watching their fans last night and how much it meant to them, I hope they can push on. They face a tough France side in the next round though. Portugal vs Uruguay is another match that looks like it will go right down to the wire.
Well... Who would have predicted Germany not making it out of the Group? Or Sweden Winning that group? I'd backed Mexico to win the group before a ball was kicked but didn't see this coming..
In other words, never. VAR shouldn't have reversed the decision for Dezotti's red card.. Klinsmann made a meal of it but it was still a bad tackle - in fact if Klinsmann hadn't seen it coming it could have been really nasty. Other games, yeah sure... but then you're into a long list of what ifs. After seeing Chicharito's hand ball today, I'm convinced it's a farce. The one thing it is doing is calling into question ref's knowledge of the game or, as you suggest, the laws themselves. I don't believe every time the ball hits the hand it should be a penalty. So it has to be subjective. And if it is subjective just let the ref make a judgement because the evidence is that VAR only helps when the ref's view is obstructed. It doesn't happen often enough to warrant VAR because a good ref keeps up with play and has his assistants.
