The VAR thread

[David Lowe]

I have heard suggestions of ex players doing Var - but how long would it be before an ex player would be ready to do it? Referees spend years working through the system & it must take time to know all the rules inside out. Saying that, cricketers seem to move into umpiring fairly quickly so maybe it’s possible. 

[st albans fox]

13 minutes ago, David Lowe said:

I have heard suggestions of ex players doing Var - but how long would it be before an ex player would be ready to do it? Referees spend years working through the system & it must take time to know all the rules inside out. Saying that, cricketers seem to move into umpiring fairly quickly so maybe it’s possible. 

I’m not having ex players - too much baggage from their club careers. even bigger lack of trust from supporters would result. 

 

Perhaps there is an opening for ex semi pro players who still have an appreciation of paying the game at a decent level.  But yes, it would take a fair amount of training …..

[Babylon]

2 hours ago, David Lowe said:

I have heard suggestions of ex players doing Var - but how long would it be before an ex player would be ready to do it? Referees spend years working through the system & it must take time to know all the rules inside out. Saying that, cricketers seem to move into umpiring fairly quickly so maybe it’s possible. 

Most pundits don't have a clue in terms of the complexities of the laws of the game.

[MPH]

I accept that ‘ errors’ are going to happen when humans are involved. We make mistakes. There’s not a single person who is going to read this can honestly say they have never made a mistake at school or work.

 

a better question is, is this still the best system? And if not, what would be better? That answer is going to be different depending on your preference- eliminating errors or the flow of the game. I’m fairly sure VAR eliminates more mistakes than  just the ref- this can be proven simply by how many ref decisions are overturned.

 

personally, part of the game before was having a good shout at the ref and moan about how “ we was robbed”. usually the mistakes evened out over the season. Over the course of the season it felt like it was a fun part of the game-  that it kept flowing and we benefitted from a couple of decisions ourselves I’m sure.

 

however at the moment I will say the problem is not the VAR system but how it has been incorrect implemented. There will probably be a further advancement in the future where the lines are drawn automatically by some kind of computer system. Which has the potential to still produce errors, of course..

[purpleronnie]

Can anyone say they enjoy the football more with VAR....I doubt anyone would.

Edited 15 February 2023 by purpleronnie

[Babylon]

Do none of you people know how VAR works or what perspective is FFS. 

 

Lines are not drawn 6ft in the air a the point of the shoulder, so someones should LOOKING over the line means absolutely nothing.  To eliminate the trick of perspective you have to find the shoulder, or knee or head position at ground level. To do so, VAR draw a horizontal line where the ground is, and then a vertical line from where the last part of the player is. Where these points meet, that's where the thicker VAR line is drawn, in perspective across the width of the pitch. 

 

If you do that here, Barnes foot is obviously further forward that the Spurs players, he's offside. 

 

Should such tiny margins be ruled out, probably not. But in terms of where we are now, he was offside. 

[Babylon]

On 13/02/2023 at 11:08, krelm said:

Did VAR draw the lines wrong in our match too?  The spurs player at the top looks ahead of Dier as blue line goes through top of his head.  

The lines are at ground level and not 6ft in the air, whether his head or hand or knee is "through" the line is meaningless.

 

On 13/02/2023 at 11:36, OwnGoal said:

On top of that I’m not sure the offside line is entirely straight. Doesn’t look 100% parallel with the penalty box. Maybe an optical illusion but looks further away towards the bottom.  

That's perspective, they use vanishing points from the size of the pitch to calculate the lines.

 

 

On 13/02/2023 at 14:44, Buzzell said:

If anything Dier’s hand/arm is further out than Barnes. Disgrace of a decision.

Again, his hand isn't at ground level, find it's position in relation to Barnes foot at ground level and that's the point of the measurement. 

 

On 13/02/2023 at 15:22, Bert said:

That part of his arm is clearly through the red line. 

Merely a trick of perspective. 

On 13/02/2023 at 15:33, TWUKO said:

That Barnes goal was not offside

 

It was. 

[Les-TA-Jon]

Reality is, other than the errors at the weekend (which weren't to do with VAR), VAR has almost 100% eradicated offside goals from the sport. That's a big improvement. And one that doesn't get enough credit.

 

Even just 6 years ago you'd have perfectly good goals ruled out for offside when they were level or even players obviously offside scoring goals and it being missed. Now, the culture of the sport and the relationship between all its stakeholders and the way it was officiated meant that people 'accepted' those errors as being part of the game, you win some, you lose some. But it doesn't change that they are/were injustices. We would have probably lost the FA cup had it been played in 2018 not 2021. But we'd be the only ones still talking about it, everyone else would have forgotten about the injustice of it 5 mins after the final whistle. 

 

It seems VERY difficult for the sport to go backwards on this. It'd be like getting rid of goal line tech. 

 

It's just going to take time for the 'culture' of the sport to adapt to how we view offsides. Used to be "Oh he was only half a yard off, it's not that bad of a decision", nowadays we talk about milimetres. 

[orangecity23]

52 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Do none of you people know how VAR works or what perspective is FFS. 

 

Lines are not drawn 6ft in the air a the point of the shoulder, so someones should LOOKING over the line means absolutely nothing.  To eliminate the trick of perspective you have to find the shoulder, or knee or head position at ground level. To do so, VAR draw a horizontal line where the ground is, and then a vertical line from where the last part of the player is. Where these points meet, that's where the thicker VAR line is drawn, in perspective across the width of the pitch. 

 

If you do that here, Barnes foot is obviously further forward that the Spurs players, he's offside. 

 

Should such tiny margins be ruled out, probably not. But in terms of where we are now, he was offside. 

The right hand edge of the red line is aligned with Barnes foot. The vertical line from Davies shoulder to the floor intercepts the blue line on its left edge - so surely the blue lines right hand edge should be further to the left, so it's right hand edge matches Davies shoulder's vertical line? Looks like Dier's foot is the origin for the blue line.

[Babylon]

22 minutes ago, orangecity23 said:

The right hand edge of the red line is aligned with Barnes foot. The vertical line from Davies shoulder to the floor intercepts the blue line on its left edge - so surely the blue lines right hand edge should be further to the left, so it's right hand edge matches Davies shoulder's vertical line? Looks like Dier's foot is the origin for the blue line.

Without their calculating lines being visible it's hard to know what these lines show in terms of measurement positioning, or even whether they measured from Barnes foot, or took into account he's in motion and not grounded. (these are mega blurry and they look like they are overlapping and slightly transparent so they could be hiding the exact edges)

 

Either way, there is no line that puts him onside if you use their measurement technique. (My image is rough obviously).

[jammie82uk]

Just caught up on watching Ref watch and Dermot was adamant that Lemina must have been booked the 2nd time for dissent for having said something to the referee because the 3rd person thing doesn’t exist and never has,

so what is this statement from the premier league. 

https://www.premierleague.com/news/65240

 

Surrounding match officials 

A yellow card for at least one player when two or more from a team surround a match official.

[Super_horns]

48 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

Just caught up on watching Ref watch and Dermot was adamant that Lemina must have been booked the 2nd time for dissent for having said something to the referee because the 3rd person thing doesn’t exist and never has,

so what is this statement from the premier league. 

https://www.premierleague.com/news/65240

 

Surrounding match officials 

A yellow card for at least one player when two or more from a team surround a match official.

Heard someone say it came in after the World Cup but seems a very harsh rule .

 

The 1st and 2nd players are likely to be showing much more dissent .

[Super_horns]

2 hours ago, Babylon said:

Most pundits don't have a clue in terms of the complexities of the laws of the game.

They wouldn’t want to leave the comfy studio in the warm !

 

Not to be paid less to work outside and be abused each week with allegations of bias and having agendas.

[Smudge]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Without their calculating lines being visible it's hard to know what these lines show in terms of measurement positioning, or even whether they measured from Barnes foot, or took into account he's in motion and not grounded. (these are mega blurry and they look like they are overlapping and slightly transparent so they could be hiding the exact edges)

 

Either way, there is no line that puts him onside if you use their measurement technique. (My image is rough obviously).

There seems to be minimal perspective width difference between the edges of the white line as you look up the photo, Using photoshop ruler , I can detect maybe a point or two. Yet proportionally , the distance from the white line to the players is far more. This suggests to me that Spurs players were nearer to the white line than Barnes was. 

Edited 15 February 2023 by Smudge

[jammie82uk]

39 minutes ago, Super_horns said:

Heard someone say it came in after the World Cup but seems a very harsh rule .

 

The 1st and 2nd players are likely to be showing much more dissent .

The article is from 2016 so it possible could be 

[David Lowe]

47 minutes ago, Super_horns said:

Heard someone say it came in after the World Cup but seems a very harsh rule .

 

The 1st and 2nd players are likely to be showing much more dissent .

Yes but the third player knows only 2 are allowed.

[David Lowe]

2 hours ago, Babylon said:

Without their calculating lines being visible it's hard to know what these lines show in terms of measurement positioning, or even whether they measured from Barnes foot, or took into account he's in motion and not grounded. (these are mega blurry and they look like they are overlapping and slightly transparent so they could be hiding the exact edges)

 

Either way, there is no line that puts him onside if you use their measurement technique. (My image is rough obviously).

It’s way too complicated for me to get my head round but are we saying there are no possible lines that we can be shown to prove Barnes is offside?

[KrefelderFox666]

2 hours ago, Babylon said:

Without their calculating lines being visible it's hard to know what these lines show in terms of measurement positioning, or even whether they measured from Barnes foot, or took into account he's in motion and not grounded. (these are mega blurry and they look like they are overlapping and slightly transparent so they could be hiding the exact edges)

 

Either way, there is no line that puts him onside if you use their measurement technique. (My image is rough obviously).

In the PSG Bayern game last night, for the goal that got ruled out, they showed an AI generated graphic that shows a side on view and highlights which part of the attackers body is beyond the "non-offside" zone. Surely they must have this available in the PL too? It was also used in the WC. Like this:

Edited 15 February 2023 by KrefelderFox666

[TheUltimateWinner]

I think the fact we base offside decisions on where an official uses a mouse to draw lines and if we asked them to draw the lines again it would basically be impossible to draw it in the exact same spot is ludicrous.

 

Should’ve waited until automated offsides came in before implementing.

 

We’ve gained nothing and lost the joy of celebrating goals.

[yorkie1999]

4 hours ago, Babylon said:

The lines are at ground level and not 6ft in the air, whether his head or hand or knee is "through" the line is meaningless.

 

That's perspective, they use vanishing points from the size of the pitch to calculate the lines.

 

 

Again, his hand isn't at ground level, find it's position in relation to Barnes foot at ground level and that's the point of the measurement. 

 

Merely a trick of perspective. 

It was. 

They're not correct though because the vanishing point should be calculated from what is already there, i.e. the line on the edge of the penalty box, the near side of the line would measure a certain width that is slightly wider than the far side. If you look at the barnes offside photo, the var lines do not follow that principle. There must be some sort of digital system that actually straitens everything out though.

 Edit, just read the above post.

Edited 15 February 2023 by yorkie1999

[Babylon]

1 hour ago, David Lowe said:

It’s way too complicated for me to get my head round but are we saying there are no possible lines that we can be shown to prove Barnes is offside?

No, he’s offside. Measure from where you want on their players. If you do it how VAR does it (for good reason), he’s offside. 

[Super_horns]

1 hour ago, David Lowe said:

Yes but the third player knows only 2 are allowed.

Well do they in the heat of the moment ?

 

I mean we know players appeal for anything!

[Super_horns]

1 hour ago, jammie82uk said:

The article is from 2016 so it possible could be 

Suppose the trouble is we never really hear about these rules till it’s enforced and you can be certain it won’t be all the time .

 

There are players surrounding the ref every game almost yet no one gets booked .

[Babylon]

14 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

They're not correct though because the vanishing point should be calculated from what is already there, i.e. the line on the edge of the penalty box, the near side of the line would measure a certain width that is slightly wider than the far side. If you look at the barnes offside photo, the var lines do not follow that principle. There must be some sort of digital system that actually straitens everything out though.

 Edit, just read the above post.

It’s too small a sample, it’s barely discernible at that range. If you look whole pitch you can see it more. 
 

[Babylon]

2 minutes ago, Babylon said:

It’s too small a sample, it’s barely discernible at that range. If you look whole pitch you can see it more. 
 

Found the bigger pic, it’s far clearer perspective wise to show thickness of lines changing.