Human beings are funny old creatures. In the past, when watching football highlights, there always used to be lots of debates. He was offside! No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was. Or Look at that! The ref has made a blatant mistake. They were robbed!
So, after many years of such arguing and with the development of technology, a natural and logical solution to the problem arose, ‘Why don’t we just use video technology to correct the mistakes?’
It seems to make sense. A lot of the controversy is a result of the fact that so many matches are televised and the people analysing them have access to all sorts of video replays. So, why not give the people officiating access to said replays when they are judging so that they can make the right decisions?
A Tale of Two Goals
Well, in yesterday’s Liverpool vs Wolves match, there were two interesting incidents. Firstly, the ball was played forward and it looked like it bounced off the attacker’s arm into the path of a second attacker who scored. Not only that, but the defender who played the ball forward also appeared to touch it as he got it under control. However, using video replays someone was able to check and come to the conclusion that in the second case the ball came off the shoulder and in the first it was inconclusive and so didn’t merit being penalised. Maybe these were the right decisions although with regard to the goal it could be considered unfair as there were suggestions that the whistle had been blown and so the defensive players eased up, thinking that a free kick was going to be given (debatable though, as some of them at least continued playing).
A few minutes later, Wolves went into attack and scored an equaliser to make up for this first incident. Or so they thought! The equaliser preceded to be ruled put for offside. On the video replay, it could have only been offside by a fractional margin, so called millimetres as it were! It seemed harsh, especially considering what had happened moments earlier when a goal had been given because there was no conclusive evidence against it.
Expert Analysis
The interesting aspect to all this was that during the highlights programme, the football pundits spent their time debating the ins and outs of all this. Thus, technology was introduced to stop all the debating and arguing about different decisions, but all it has done has been to transfer the debating and arguing from one subject to another. Instead, of discussing the rights and wrongs of the referee’s decisions, the experts spend their time bemoaning technological mishaps and controversies.
It would seem that this says something about human nature. Decisions in something like football, which is fast paced and not clear cut, are always going to be subjective. There are some things that are obvious such as a direct elbow to the face or a man being a yard offside but what about when two men are practically level? It’s then just down to camera angle and the straightness of computer drawn lines. Likewise, many fouls are open to interpretation so it doesn’t necessarily help seeing it 10 times from 20 angles as it’s a matter of opinion. Did he catch him or not? Was it intentional?
In other words, somethings are down to how we interpret the situation, something that is never unbiased because we are all influenced by the circumstances around us, or indeed in us, so surely it’s better to let the referee make his mind up and just go with that. Indeed, in many situations our first, instinctive decision is often best (how many students have regretted changing their original answer to an exam question!). In any case, human beings are fallible creatures and so, even with video technology, mistakes can be made.
Anyone up for a good argument?
There is another aspect to this. It would seem that it’s human nature to criticize and be negative. This whole VAR situation arose because in the past many refereeing decisions were taken to task for being wrong. But we could have just been positive and accepted that mistakes happen because that’s human nature and accepted them. Trying to use technology to eradicate mistakes isn’t going to happen because it is ignoring the source of them.
The mistakes are not simply a result of the fact that the referee hasn’t seen something clearly but rather there are many complicated factors, not all of which can be avoided by watching video replays.
Play to the Whistle
Beyond the debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the VAR system, there is another lesson to be learned from this particular match. Wolves, the team seemingly wronged by the VAR decisions in the first half, could have let their heads go down and give up due to frustration. However, they didn’t. Indeed, based on the highlights, they were the better team in the second half and came closed to scoring. Liverpool didn’t have any good second half chances and the match could easily have been a draw.
So, here we learn that in life, even when some thing doesn’t go your way, it’s not a good idea to just give up. If we keep going, we still have a chance and actually some times, things can work out better than expected!