The var thread

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ChilcoSaint said:
Well exactly. Like him or not, the Souness suggestion that if any part of the attacker’s body is onside, then he isn’t offside makes sense.

The trouble with the way VAR is being used at the moment for offside, is that essentially there are 3 moving points which have to be measured exactly, and the resolution of the cameras isn’t good enough. The last defender’s body, the attacker’s body, and, often forgotten but just as important, the exact moment when the ball is propelled forward towards the attacker, all have to be frozen in time. I would bet that in most cases, at least one of the moving points isn’t captured accurately. The hardest one to capture is the ball. At what point does a foot kicking a football make the ball move? When it first touches it, or as the ball leaves the surface of the boot? The time difference, while only a fraction of a second, is still enough to put the line drawn on the last defender in a different place, or move a running attacker to the other side of that line.

That being the case, VAR is not fit for purpose with the current technology and shouldn’t be used at all for offside.
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For your first part, It makes sense, but so does the current implementation. The current rule is just fairer as it doesn't give the attacker an unfair advantage. only real difference i see.

There's not been a incident ive seen where the resolution of the camera hasn't been good enough. Zaha's for example, clearly had multiple pixels between attacker and defenders feet, and even more between the foot and offside torso.
for the ball, personally, i would judge it as the point at which the ball stops accelerating (moved the same distance as the previous frame). That means there is no more contact and we can judge speed very accurately. Its how speed cameras have worked for decades. Not sure how VAR have done it though.

The hardest part is the frame rate, luckily this is premier league sport and they have access to high end slow motion cameras.

VAR is far more fit for purpose than the eye of a human official.
 
Think I've read somewhere that the cameras used are 50-120 FPS which is no where near enough to be certain when players are moving in opposite direction etc.




Pukki just wasn't offside and no one can say with certainty that he was.
 
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VocalMinority said:
For your first part, It makes sense, but so does the current implementation. The current rule is just fairer as it doesn't give the attacker an unfair advantage. only real difference i see.

There's not been a incident ive seen where the resolution of the camera hasn't been good enough. Zaha's for example, clearly had multiple pixels between attacker and defenders feet, and even more between the foot and offside torso.
for the ball, personally, i would judge it as the point at which the ball stops accelerating (moved the same distance as the previous frame). That means there is no more contact and we can judge speed very accurately. Its how speed cameras have worked for decades. Not sure how VAR have done it though.

The hardest part is the frame rate, luckily this is premier league sport and they have access to high end slow motion cameras.

VAR is far more fit for purpose than the eye of a human official.
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If the purpose of VAR is to ruin live football I couldn't agree more.
 
Libby said:
Think I've read somewhere that the cameras used are 50-120 FPS which is no where near enough to be certain when players are moving in opposite direction etc.




Pukki just wasn't offside and no one can say with certainty that he was.
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They have access to sony HDC's that can record at 800fps.

https://pro.sony/en_GB/products/4k-and-hd-camera-systems/hdc-4800

Most of the time 50fps is going to be enough anyway. also if you find the correct frame the ball is kicked all you have to do is check the frame before and after, if he is offside in both he's offside 100%. thats going to be the case most of the time.
 
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saintrichie123 said:
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The thing is it's a bell curve, so if you can see he's offside in the frame before and after which is likely to be the case then there is no margin of error as described here. It's completely removed.

Before VAR replays for sky used to do this and rock back and forth
 
My issue isn't whether the current technology is up to scratch. At the end of the day, it's the same technology for all 20 teams.

My issue is that I want VAR to remove the glaring errors. A player not being flagged offside by VAR, if they were given onside but their armpit or toe is offside is not a glaring error. Norwich, Palace, Brighton, Sheff Utd, Wolves: VAR should not be overruling the linesman on those decisions. When it comes to offside, VAR should be overruling the linesman on decisions like Auba vs Man Utd, which was a horrendous on-field decision.

But taking the debate away from VAR, it does highlight the general problem with the current offside rule. At the end of the day, if the technology is to be believed, then legitimately all of the aforementioned "goals" this weekend were not goals. So if we pretend for one moment that the linesman are good enough to spot such tight offsides, or different technology is created and implemented so as to give an instant on-field decision, then such goals would still have been ruled out this weekend. Yes, the decisions would have been much quicker than it took VAR, but the end result would still have been the same. And that cannot be considered satisfactory, can it? Should be really have an offside law which says anything beyond the last defender is offside? Surely we want to see goals scored, and attacking play rewarded?

Souness' comment therefore fits in with this latter point. Changing the law so that you only need part of your body to be onside, in order to be classed as onside, is very sensible in my book. In effect, it's returning to the old "clear daylight" rule. As I said yesterday, it will immediately lead to more goals being scored. However, as I also said yesterday, going back to the VAR point then I don't see how it helps. All it does there is to change where the blue line will get drawn (ie against the 'scoring' body part of the attacker which is furthest away from the goal, rather than nearest to the goal).
 
VocalMinority said:
They have access to sony HDC's that can record at 800fps.

https://pro.sony/en_GB/products/4k-and-hd-camera-systems/hdc-4800

Most of the time 50fps is going to be enough anyway. also if you find the correct frame the ball is kicked all you have to do is check the frame before and after, if he is offside in both he's offside 100%. thats going to be the case most of the time.
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Have access to means what exactly? They have one they can use if they wish or they have lots of them at every ground in the country?

Pretty sure that it's not the latter, although I think the World Cup might have used higher spec, I know they used more cameras than the PL do for each game but it's hard to find concrete information on what they're using spec wise one way or the other.

The issue is you're just saying what you think they might do, we don't actually know that. I'd like clarification on the exact margin of error, how they decided which frame to use, whether lines are human drawn or software driven etc. and so on.


I can't help but think the secrecy is deliberate so they can make it up as they go long - they want the wiggle room imo.


VocalMinority said:
Also point 1 is plain wrong. It's at maximum 10cm. Likely less than that due to what is described in point 2. He could also be more offside. Also remember that a foot is 30cm. Zaha was about half a foot offside so outside this margin of error.
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'About half a foot' - Sounds as much guesswork as what the officials are using ;)
 
Libby said:
Have access to means what exactly? They have one they can use if they wish or they have lots of them at every ground in the country?

Pretty sure that it's not the latter, although I think the World Cup might have used higher spec, I know they used more cameras than the PL do for each game but it's hard to find concrete information on what they're using spec wise one way or the other.

The issue is you're just saying what you think they might do, we don't actually know that. I'd like clarification on the exact margin of error, how they decided which frame to use, whether lines are human drawn or software driven etc.




'About half a foot' - Sounds as much guesswork as what the officials are using ;)
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I found records of BT buying them to use for the pl back in 2015. Also found a cameramen talking about how they use primarily Sony HDCs. although that is a range of cameras, even the lower spec ones do x4 (200fps)

I do agree with your second/third points. The lines are computer driven, i know how that works, but it involves the VAR official calibrating it by telling the computer 3 reference points on the screen which is what takes the time.

His foot was offside so i had a good measuring stick there.
 
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VocalMinority said:
I found records of BT buying them to use for the pl back in 2015. Also found a cameramen talking about how they use primarily Sony HDCs. although that is a range of cameras, even the lower spec ones do x4 (200fps)

I do agree with your second/third points. The lines are computer driven, i know how that works, but it involves the VAR official calibrating it by telling the computer 3 reference points on the screen which is what takes the time.

His foot was offside so i had a good measuring stick there.
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Wait you talking about a foot as in the body part or as in measurement? Got myself really confused here <laugh>

This might be a really stupid question but they don't necessarily use the same cameras for TV and var do they (as a rule anyway)? I was always under the impression that the var system was it's own set of cameras etc.
 
Libby said:
Wait you talking about a foot as in the body part or as in measurement? Got myself really confused here <laugh>

This might be a really stupid question but they don't necessarily use the same cameras for TV and var do they (as a rule anyway)? I was always under the impression that the var system was it's own set of cameras etc.
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The quote i remember said that they had access to the broadcast cameras. But yeah, im not sure what footage they get.
I think a set of 4 dedicated cameras near the 4 corners of the pitch that were calibrated before the game and dont move would be the best method personally. But i don't believe thats how they are doing it.

Also the difference between the average foot size and the measurement unit is small enough as to not make a difference to my point.
 
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tomw24 said:
To the surprise of absolutely no one, we're top of the VAR table. We're +5 in VAR decisions. Most teams are +1 or worse!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50944416
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****ing hell we should have got that bloke to sort it out for us:


"If you spend multiple minutes trying to identify whether it is offside or not, then it's not clear and obvious and the original decision should stand," he said.

He added: "What we really need to stress is that 'clear and obvious' applies to every single situation that is being reviewed by the VAR or the referee.

"In theory, 1mm offside is offside, but if a decision is taken that a player is not offside and the VAR is trying to identify through looking at five, six, seven, 10, 12 cameras whether or not it was offside, then the original decision should stand.

"This is the problem. People are trying to be too forensic. We are not looking to make a better decision, we are trying to get rid of the clear and obvious mistakes.

"If video evidence shows that a player was in an offside position, he was offside full stop. If it's not obvious, then the decision cannot be changed, you stay with the original decision.
 
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