When I was ten years old, my dad took me to a football match at the then Telstra Dome.
It was only the second game of football I’d ever attended, and being new to the game, riding off the back of my dad’s adulation – and that of many others too – at Australia qualifying for the World Cup the year before, I was a completely new customer. And more so, in the eyes of a burgeoning league, I was the interest that needed to be attracted and maintained in order for the A-League to avoid suffering the same fate as the NSL.
After still being quite neutral after the first game I’d attended, the second game managed to do just that.
Melbourne Victory were playing Central Coast Mariners, and I found myself in the most unfamiliar amphitheatre of on-field drama and vocal passion off the pitch that I had ever seen. Forget the fact that the 30,000 in attendance were still recovering from the shock of the score being 2-2 after about 15 minutes and the home team being reduced to nine men for the last hour after falling behind 3-2; the ending would be worth the price of admission three times over.
Closing in on 90 minutes, throw in to come on the attacking side of left field. The ball is played intricately around the penalty area and ultimately a fateful cross to the back post saw the breath of a pulsating stadium collectively held. The cross is met by a thunderous Danny Allsopp volley to draw nine-man Melbourne Victory level.
Sheer delirium.
It’s still regarded by many Victory fans as the loudest noise made at one of our games ever, and as a kid who had nothing to gain from being hooked, I was hooked. I fell in love with everything about the contest. The unlikeliness of falling behind 3-2 within the first hour in a sport that everyone at school told me was boring. The lunacy of our captain, Kevin Muscat, getting himself sent off with an hour left despite being behind. The echo of the referee’s whistle to award the Mariners their penalty after a Roddy Vargas handball. But ultimately it was the almost drug-like euphoria of the most unlikely of comebacks in the dying minutes and the wall of noise that ensued.
Fast-forward 16 years.
(Albert Perez/Getty Images)
I’m a rusted-on A-League fan and club member and having serious questions about my faith in the game.
Had that particular match happened today, the video assistant referee (VAR) would’ve taken the goal away for a foul throw leading up to the Allsopp goal. Not to mention it probably would’ve added a five-minute wait for both red cards to ensure they absolutely were red cards.
And it would’ve checked the penalty and that nobody encroached in the area during the penalty kick.
It’s resulted in the standard 100-minute game, all the delaying.
I never would have ended up hooked on the sport, and I would probably have gone back to talking about AFL at school on Monday rather than raving about the most incredible experience I’d just discovered.
You may argue that had the VAR been in place and made the decision to disallow the goal for a foul throw, it would’ve been the correct decision and therefore the best outcome. But would it really have been?
I’m sure football fans reading this have felt their fair share of moments where a decision in a moment of controversy has left them leaving a game feeling utterly heartbroken and angry. I do too.
There was the Gui Finkler’s strike in a Melbourne derby that crossed the line but wasn’t counted which would’ve changed the outcome of the match. Heartbreaking.
And let’s not forget Michael Theo handling the ball outside the penalty area before kicking it long to Matt McKay in injury time to equalise against us. Devastating.
But what I am sure about is that the list of enraging moments of VAR intervention is fast becoming far longer than the other list despite it having been around for only a few years.
Goals have been disallowed for contentious offsides when the on-field linesperson hasn’t even raised their flag. Jason Cummings had disallowed his stunning long-range strike earlier this season because a ball was carelessly or deliberately but harmlessly rolled onto the corner of the field. Play was allowed to unfold and attackers were allowed to go on to score worldies when the linesperson had the intention of raising their flag from the moment the player received the ball but had to appease VAR by letting it play out.
And now the cherry on top of the misery and the actualisation of everything I feared when VAR was brought about is happening at the World Cup, on football’s biggest stage.
Lionel Messi, probably the greatest to ever play, in his probable World Cup swansong watched teammate Lautaro Martinez masterfully slide in behind the Saudi defence to slot the ball home for a second goal.
Delight around the world watching a master at his best continue a perfect start towards a fairytale World Cup title to end his career. For a moment at least. For VAR would have a look and steal that delight away for a contentious, marginal offside call that not even the linesman had called.
(Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images)
It was not the obvious type of error the system was intended to be used for when it was brought in. Instead it was the reason that, after being absolutely buzzing all day for the game to start, I almost turned it off, as my stomach dropped in the realisation of what the game has become.
It’s a game in which you no longer feel confident enough to even celebrate a goal anymore as you know it will take an NRL bunker-esque three minutes to analyse its legitimacy.
A goal used to be unhinged excitement, a split-moment penalty call, correct or incorrect. It was heart-stopping drama. Now we’re left with an anxious and controlled cheer after a goal as it is now seems very likely to be disallowed. Football fans in Australia used to make fun of other sports constantly changing their rules and hyper-analysing on-field decisions. Now we find ourselves arguably the worst of them all.
Are we happy to continue seeing stadiums of potential new customers, as I was years ago, celebrate magical moments only for them to contentiously be taken away moments later? Are we happy to see goals disallowed because two minutes earlier in the possession there was a foul? Where do we draw the line and start accepting the referee and linespeople as humans who make mistakes that are sometimes favourable and sometimes not? Do we really need any technology in the sport beyond goal-line technology?
Maybe if we can start showing respect to the on-field officials – respect they deserved all along for allowing us a game – we can be rid of this VAR system and get the flow, drama and passion back that made me fall in love with the sport. Because right now it seems we are reaping what many of us sowed.
Gus O
Roar Rookie
I’m rambling from a lifetime ago, remembering back to playing soccer and rugby league at every break at and high school and primary school (including a visit to the school from Johnny Warren in the lead up to our first world cup). Boundaries set by landmarks… a tree, a drainage ditch and bern… the unspoken goal was to get as much play into the limited minutes available before the bell ended our lunch break. Anything but a violent foul was acceptable, and the ball could be way outside the boundary line and play continue if possession was still being contested (like aussie rules). We were there to play the GAME. There was no patience for anyone who wanted to pull up play to argue about the rules. The number of players on each team often didn’t even line up, and the roaming goalie had to make up the difference. It’s the aspect of AFF that I appreciate, best efforts to keep the ball in play along the boundary - play on, rules that intend to keep the ball in play and keep the game moving. Love it, not perfect but it reminds me of playing as a kid. Fast forward to my daughter at high school. They had a couple of kids who wanted to pull up play to argue the rules at every opportunity, didn’t matter if it was netball or handball or soccer. They all hated it. It minimised ball in play time and drove them all nuts. In the end, they told the two girls who were continually picking up the ball and stopping play to argue about the rules that they had a choice: let us all play or go away. That’s VAR and the NRL bunker. Sucking the joy and emotional life out of the game. You can’t go back - because the game looks ridiculous if the TV is showing slomo replays that show your team losing due to clearly incorrect/unfair decisions. So it’s a matter of HOW the technology is used, and that is the administrators. The administrators will only respond to public embarrassment from media hysteria when there is an outright clanger in an important game, or pressure from sponsors, or united pressure from the clubs. But there needs to be a clear solution. In rugby league, off side is ruled at the position of your feet relative to the ball when the ball is kicked. Basically your feet cannot be in front of the kicker’s foot as it is striking the ball. Anything else is ridiculous. And video rulings need to be made quickly. And the range of permitted video interventions need to be limited (going back to call a foul throw? good grief, can the VAR really be applied to that?). And we all need to accept, all of us including the video refs that the purpose is to prevent clangers, not to attempt millimetre perfection because perfection is NOT the objective. Critically, attempting perfection or pretending perfection is both unattainable and at the expense of emotional engagement of the fans and joy of the game.
Anthony Lefley
Guest
Great article, I agree VAR in its current form is taking the fun out of it. I do think it is a good concept and helps with the right decision, as the refs can’t see everything. I think it’s just the time it takes and slowing of the game which really causes the issue. If they could make a decision within 15 seconds we would barely notice, and I think that would be plenty of time. The commentators always seem to have judged it within a few seconds correctly, so why does VAR have to take so much longer? Sometimes it’s about 3 minutes before they decide and it just kills everything like you say.
Rodney McMinge
Guest
I have to agree. The rules are the basis of the problem , before you look at VAR. There are so many stupid rules that i'm sure not one registered player has any idea about. Too many options to get things wrong. I'd like to see it all simplified to help the game flow. I'd like to know which brain surgeon thought some of these up. Some are just beyond belief ! Stupidity of the highest order. As far as offside goes, there is only one item the ref should be checking, and that's the feet. Forget all that other crap. There was one player the other day with a nose the size of of a leg of ham. He'll be a victim of the whistle if he leans forward.
Munro Mike
Roar Rookie
my main issue with the game is the negativity of the rules. Too much in place to try to stop scoring - - which means that scoring is often via fluke factor (deflections, chaos ball, own goals, just rrrr'ssss beating class). Why use VAR to just make it even harder?? Perhaps.......just do away with off-side. It's the professional era after all; with elite fitness levels.
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
Do you really think it was better when a player could be called offside and denied a goal when he was an inch onside? I wouldn't complain if they allowed a six inch leeway but you'll still have he same complaints. ''He was only six and a half inches offside , they should have let it go'' It's no different to a tennis ball which lands a millimetre outside the line, in tennis when the opponent was beaten hands down and left stranded on the other side of the court. Nobody can complain if the offside is enforced to the letter of the law because everyone knows where they stand. The VAR should help with diving because if players are faking it they should be marched. It's much easier to detect diving with a replay , much, much easier.
Aiden
Guest
Mostly true, except I think that VAR is also coming up with outcomes in which no-one ever complained. No-one cried 'we was robbed' when a player was in-line with the defensive line, but their big toe was over the line. No-one cared, or would have considered that as an error that we needed techology to fix. VAR is there to catch the hand-balls, contact in the box, and plain mistakes where the player was a foot offside. The annoying thing is that it's picking up nonsense that does not truely impact the outcome, a forehead offside by an inch, a bit of meaningless contact. Players now feel the slightest touch and they go down hoping that VAR will help them out.
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
Maradona's ''hand of god'' goal was very exciting as well but it would have been much better if the VAR was in place to deny it and yellow card him. It's just progress and it's happened in plenty of sports including cricket and tennis. It's all very well to legitimize a goal or point or whatever it is depending on the sport because , the linesman didn't notice it but that's exactly why the electronics were bought in. Linesman are humans and just making an educated guess when it's close. Making a guess isn't good enough if there is an alternative and there is. New fans coming thru won't understand what the fuss is about.
Aiden
Guest
Is VAR the problem or is it the combo between VAR and an offside rule that was not created with VAR in mind. Plenty of commentary to the effect that loads of goals called offside by VAR would have been given in the past with no complaint. The technology is there to fix howlers and it works well for that. At the moment it’s not picking up howlers. What’s the offside rule for? It makes the game work … otherwise we’d have teams seagulling around the box. It’s designed to stop an unfair advantage. Where a player is in line … and often mostly behind the line, yet their forehead is an inch over the line because their body is leaning to start a run … they obviously do not have an unfair advantage. My preference is to reverse the rule so that you are onside if ANY part of the attackers body is in line with the defensive line. That will likely lead to the odd extra goal which I don’t think anyone will complain about. Players are still in line so no unfair advantage.
lukeparaman
Roar Rookie
EDIT: Article is meant to say Messi’s teammate Lautaro Martinez scored.