Ridiculous number of pundits saying this was the "worst offside decision in the history of football". The histrionics are just pitiful at this point. And besides, the worst offside decision in the history of football has to be Jan Vertonghen being flagged offside against Sunderland despite being 15 yards inside his own half.
And it wasn't the worst offside that week, as Broja had a Vertonghen special for Chelsea: please log in to view this image Not as extreme as the Belgian's, but still a terrible decision. No VAR in that round of the cup, either.
All this nonsense about VAR and decision making by officials generally is putting me off top level football at the moment. Discussion of games shouldn’t be about the intervention of officials. Most other sports have managed to use technology to improve the accuracy of the decisions made by officials; by and large therefore decisions are less controversial and less likely to adversely affect the outcome. Some sports still suffer from bad decision making, which determine the outcome (F1 re safety car, judges in boxing etc) but few mess up the use of technology quite so badly. With the Diaz offside decision, is there Hawkeye equivalent technology to draw the lines to determine whether a player offside?. It exists for lbw in cricket, which is a similar process, although it also has to factor in the added complication of the flight/movement of the ball.
Yes, they have semi-automated offside technology and used it in the World Cup, IIRC. It's imperfect and the officials still have to indicate which players are involved, but it's better. They don't use it though, as it would prevent the conspiracy against Liverpool.
according to PGMOL the lines were drawn and showed Diaz was onside but the VAR officials were paying so little attention that that thought the goal had been given .
Yeah this was by all accounts a human error not a tech error. With that said I don’t know why they don’t use the WC system in the PL too.
“Oli’s saying delay the game, delay the game.” “I can’t, they’ve restarted”. It’s incredible how inept you have to be to have ****ed that up. I mean, we massively benefitted from it, but bloody hell absolute morons.
https://www.premierleague.com/news/3718057?sf269410963=1 Audio and video are at this link. They sound awfully rushed. Even just stopping to think for a second and be clear would have solved the issue full stop.
Is it any surprise, given how absurdly commercialised the game has become? Like it or not, controversy draws eyes. Look how much attention and internet traffic one wrong decision has generated. That just doesn't happen from discussing the actual sporting events of a game, with the exception of absolute thrillers or huge derby games such as El Classico. The only thing that surprises me is that they haven't yet introduced advert reels during VAR checks for audiences watching at home. That is the logical next step.
