Justice and video arbitration: it may not be | Soccer | Sports

When we lived in the football of the last century, not in black and white, we always received the message that all the uncertainties and refereeing debates would end when new technologies arrived and brought the exact image, the precise moment, the indisputable proof that would allow the referees to make the right decision, which would put an end to all debates and suspicions.

Almost all of these voices were supported by images that came from American sports, from the United States, in which in a couple of minutes and after consulting the corresponding screen, the American referees of basketball, baseball, American football or ice hockey, could eliminate doubts and whistle, and even explain with the microphone they had on them, what their decision was and why they decided what they decided.

And in those times when there were no social networks and information arrived in a limited way, we were all convinced that in all the stadiums and pavilions, the public accepted those decisions and no one began to doubt either the decision or the intention of the whistlers, although, very occasionally, we received news of some gross error in which the decisions contradicted the images. But we always believed, as they told us, that this was the exception of the exception and that the system was almost infallible, it was right 95% of the time.

In the perception that football was being left behind in a world that was beginning to move at a rapid pace, with a certain complex of an old dinosaur reluctant and allergic to change, with the conviction that the expression that what works cannot be touched It no longer served centennial football, the changes began. With the certainty that if a spectator or journalist could see live, in the same stadium and on their mobile phone, the repetition of that play that had just put a stadium in arms and that contradicted the decision made by the referee, with all those elements and a few more related to the business and to close the uncertainties of this wonderful game, the football governing bodies launched themselves to introduce video refereeing into the game. This beginning was always accompanied by excellent publicity fueled by the desire that, finally, football would begin to be fair.

But as we have also learned in this ball game, what you want is one thing and what happens is another. Come on, you want to attack, but the opponent takes the ball from you and you spend 90 minutes defending in your area, watching the clock for time to run out and celebrating a draw, even a narrow defeat, as an excellent result.

Well, the same thing happens to us with this VAR and the technology applied with a magnifying glass in each match in which what was supposed to bring peace has brought us the greatest discord, in which in each match there are moments, microseconds in which With the image stopped we will have a penalty not called to claim, or an arm on which we must decide if it comes or goes, if it supports or accompanies, our mind will always decide what is most favorable to us.

We have learned that we must add a new variable to the player profile because those with long feet always have a greater risk of going offside or canceling it. Now we know that finding the exact moment in which the ball leaves the foot of the passer and the attacker’s position is between impossible or a matter of faith; and I won’t tell you about that mess between hands, arms, elbows, shoulders that every five minutes brings us a controversial action, a cloud of doubt, a gray to that radiant world of football that we had imagined in those times in which the hands only They were penalized based on their voluntariness or when in the Aretxabaleta square the dropped hands, that is, when you fell and touched the ball, were never a foul.

When I see on a television broadcast that goal expectations are usually always below 5%, whatever the shot, the action, the finish, it reminds me that everything important in football arises in that narrow strip, exactly that one, that was outside the analysis of American sports. Just that fine ledge on which football has developed its charm and magic. Just that which is impossible to happen and yet it does happen.

Therefore, either we leave football in its essence and eliminate, or limit, the VAR; or we leave the VAR and change the essence of football. That’s the dilemma.

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