It was needlessly complicated.
Manchester United went into half-time 1-0 up against Huddersfield in today’s FA Cup tie at the John Smith’s stadium, but it could have been 2-0. We all thought United had doubled their lead before the referee put a finger to his ear and waited for the Video Assistant Referee Neil Swarbrick to help him clarify whether or not Juan Mata was offside.
It was a marginal call, hence the need to refer to VAR, but it seemed to be the right call. Just. However, the process taken the reach that conclusion was nothing short of farcical.
https://twitter.com/btsportfootball/status/964929645819801600
BT Sport pundits Paul Scholes and Robbie Savage were outraged by the decision, as well as the way it was made. Those wobbly lines you are seeing are what the Video Assistant Referee in a TV studio miles away was using to help him make a decision. Nobody can understand why they were not straight. If only there were a white line in close proximity to Juan Mata that they could use as a reference point to draw more straight lines.
This angered fans everywhere and brought more criticism on VAR and the way it’s being implemented.
https://twitter.com/WELCOME_DUP/status/964928959132721153
When your teacher wants you to draw a line under the date but you didn’t bring your ruler https://t.co/pKyzLE0rcn
— Sean Walsh (@SeanDZWalsh) February 17, 2018
To recap then: A perfectly good goal was scored, an age was taken to see what happened, the footage shows he's onside, someone added bent lines for no real reason and then the wrong decision was made. A farce. pic.twitter.com/adANQSg5LY
— Alex Shaw (@AlexShawTel) February 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/AranSohal/status/964928908448751617
#VAR pic.twitter.com/8BgSWOhPyE
— MUNDIAL (@MundialMag) February 17, 2018
And then came the jokes.
— Kristian (@vonstrenginho) February 17, 2018
Clearly offside. pic.twitter.com/rcfuGnWdlZ
— Macca (@The_Paris_Angel) February 17, 2018
There’s a lot to digest here. Firstly, Mata is marginally offside, but the lines used in the VAR studio does not help when reaching this conclusion.
The laws of the game state that a player is offside if “any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.”
So, that’s that then. The VAR experiment continues to cause more controversy than it intended to get rid of.
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