We saw it all – disaster, chaos, no control over anything at the pitch. What was that? Using VAR at the Sydney Derby.
I am not writing about whether the referees did a good or bad job making decisions about particular parts of the game, but I do think that they could do much better to avoid some of the criticism after the match.
First of all, the Jaushua Sotirio case. There were two possibilities if the referee stood to the occasion and made a good decision on this incident.
Either the Wanderers player fouled Zullo, or he was in an offside position involved in right-wing action.
Watching this a few times carefully post-game I can say, there was some kind of an arm move from a midfielder in direction of a defender, which could lead to both of mentioned scratches.
This arm could probably make a VAR discussion during the game more complex than we think it should be, but still, there was a key moment, seen by everyone watching that game in front of screens: the duration of the decision.
At first through headphones, then on the sideline, lots of time was wasted assuming Sotirio fouled Zullo.
Chris Beath announced that by his gestures – one hand raised horizontally. Nothing more could be showed by it.
The Wanderers, with that goal, had put the pressure on Sydney. They were celebrating and the referee made the decision to clear that by VAR review, but it lasted too long.
I could understand their behaviour the moment after announcement, but the referee is there to take both captains aside and calmly tell each of them what happened, explaining all possible arguments.
Chris Beath didn’t do that and, in a second, was wrapped up with a group of players in black jerseys that wanted to know what exactly happened.
Beath hadn’t even tried to explain his decision, instead started flashing yellow cards in all possible directions, making the chaos grow bigger and bigger.
These yellows boiled coach Marko Babbel, who was frustrated and sent off just a moment later.
There is an example of referee’s behaviour in that kind of a situation, which, for me, needs to be shown to Beath.
That moment was in the opener of World Cup in Brazil when Yuichi Nishimura, just after his controversial penalty, ran behind the sideline and showed to the Croatian footballers that, if someone crossed it, there would be a yellow waiting for him.
Then, he calmly explained to everyone what happened, avoiding unnecessary chaos.
The Sydney Derby is a huge game, there are few as important as a World Cup match, and all of the people engaged in it are at the top of their emotions – referees need to understand that.
Beath didn’t know it, like he didn’t know what actually he had been checking, saying after the game that he saw an offside position.
Okay, there could have been an offside, it was even more clear than the foul itself, but when you saw it why did it take so long to make a decision and then to announce it properly, not making another mistake?
Mistakes were also made by the guys in charge of that game, when Alexander Baumjohann was ‘chopped’ by Jop van der Linden at the edge of the penalty box.
I am not here to judge whether it was a foul or not, but one thing I can say after a slow-motion replay – it was just outside of the box.
Wanderers, Sky Blues, their fans, match officials, you name it, didn’t have a chance to look at it carefully and then make a decision in favour for hosts or visitors and, yes, it once again resulted in chaos.
Looking at the VAR instructions, there is a statement that VAR can be used where there could possibly be a penalty.
Maybe the referees in front of the screen saw the replay and told Chris Beath about the result of their review – but none besides them knew about it! This caused chaos in the stands once again!
I am from Poland and in Polish Ekstraklasa there were a few important games interrupted by some accidents which, according the VAR usage rules, didn’t let anyone use it.
But, in the interest of keeping peace on the pitch, the referee went to the sideline just for a few seconds to let everyone know that everything was checked and was under control.
It was also for the fans at stadium and in front of the TV to let them now that it was reviewed (we don’t have green or red lights near the match score informing us about VAR reviews), because when VAR calmly-made decisions come into play and everyone knows what’s going on, it is much easier to the referee to do his job later on.
Even our commentary teams change their commentary style after this kind of a situation, trusting the referees that they did it right – if it really was not on the border of rules.
Chris Beath and his colleagues at VAR headquarters hadn’t let us know if the penalty was reviewed and, probably because of that, the guys working on the TV transmission didn’t make suitable graphics appear on the screen, triggering more arguments.
We are not here to judge if the referees’ decisions were made properly or not, because such a review can be done only by one who has studied football rules really closely.
Most of us are not in this group, yet we still argue about when the whistle should be blown – but the referees are the experts on the topic of rules and they are here to guarantee everything, even the little things, are under control during an A-League game.
That’s because these little things matter the most, especially at games like derbies…
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