VAR and the death knell of the "Beautiful Game"
Tottenham Hotspur 2 Liverpool 1, 30th September 2023.
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 2 (Son Heung-min 36, Matip OG 90+6)
LIVERPOOL 1 (Gakpo 45+4)
Alas, football can be a cruel game at times and an even more cruel mistress to tame and so it was that with almost the final kick of the game on Saturday evening, Joël Matip’s dog tired attempt at a clearance from inside his own 6 yard area ricocheted like a tracer bullet from his shin flying past Alisson Becker in the Reds goal, and Liverpool’s promising and unbeaten run to the start of the Premier League season is officially over.
But this does not even begin to tell the tale of events both on and indeed off the field of play in yet another calamity for the horribly dystopian spectre of VAR (Video Assistant Referee) and the unwanted intrusion this is, and will continue to be for the “Beautiful Game”, and a game and a sport it’s slowly killing or at least re-shaping for a brand new audience of passers by and tourists happy to slurp on their expensive fizzy drink and stare at their shoes before a big screen confirms whether they are now allowed to cheer or whistle hoots of derision. You see, in today’s brave new world of football you are simply not allowed to believe your own lying eyes. Rather, you have to sit or stand whilst staring at your shoes until some red and blue lines have been drawn on screen by a referee miles away from the actual action on the field of play and whilst you think you’ve seen a goal or a particularly nasty piece of foul play the referee (with the best view in the ground) then troops off to the side of the pitch to watch exactly what he’s just seen with his own human eyes not seconds before, on a pitch side monitor, and whilst we all stand around wandering if life is worth living any more, he returns, changes his mind, against the very essence of what he’s just seen WITH HIS OWN TWO EYES, and everyone can now cheer or boo because they’ve been instructed to and allowed to, now that everything is so perfectly imperfect, and a big screen tells them that their eyes were lying to them after all.
Isn’t this all just swell?
Well, no it isn’t.
Football is like any other art form. It’s spontaneous, free-flowing, in the moment, open for debate, contentious, exciting, exhilarating and a spectacle to be enjoyed. The modern game of VAR is to endured not enjoyed, a stop/start morass of the macabre and bureaucratic intrusion no-one wants or asked for. A perfectly imperfect mess of non-human intervention, of red and blue lines being scrawled across our telescreens and of fans, real football fans, now not daring to celebrate a goal in case some doom merchant hundreds of miles away deems something to be awry and yes, your eyes were lying to you all along and that goal, that exciting, in the moment goal you’ve just seen with your own eyes didn’t actually happen and has to be deleted.
It simply didn’t happen!
Do not believe your lying eyes.
I realise I’m in a minority of one and what’s more, you won’t (or want to) believe or agree with me here either, but VAR really is a mirror to a dumbed down joyless world where only organised fun is allowed. No spontaneity is allowed anymore unless of course you’re directed to do so by a big screen in a football ground or the much smaller telescreen that dominates your living room. Then you’re allowed to enjoy yourself! Other than that, sit down and shut up or stare at your shoes until we tell you different. Not angry or contentious enough for you? Well how about this question and my own answer — Who does VAR benefit? It’s certainly not you, the football fan and the lover of the (once) “Beautiful Game”. You my friend are the least of their dystopian concerns, unless of course you enjoy a bet and then, roll up, roll up, the bookies are open for business! Boy are they open for business. VAR allows for much, much more expanded betting markets for “correct” decisions and have you noticed how the game is now swamped in advertisements for this odious sideshow of disaster capitalism?
A correctly incorrect perfectly imperfect spectacle dumbed down for the numbed down.
But please, gamble responsibly.
For those in any doubt I would be saying exactly the same had the horrible shenanigans worked in favour of my beloved Reds on Saturday rather than contributing to the end of their unbeaten run. You probably won’t believe me just as much as you disagree with the paragraphs above but that’s ok, we can still be friends.
VAR is killing YOUR game. MY game. OUR game and needs to be encased in five miles of concrete, treated as hazardous, toxic waste, and buried in the world’s deepest ocean. But it won’t be. It’s here to stay and get this, it will only get worse. Far, far worse. You can state with every fibre of injustice in your bones that VAR is biased against your team and provide statistics, graphs, video evidence and pie charts to prove your theory but here’s the rub:
VAR is biased against EVERY team as it’s slowly and surely if not killing the beautiful game of football, it’s re-shaping it for a brave new dystopian world of interference, bureaucratic intrusion, of joyless fear of being spontaneous and enjoying the human reaction of what you’ve just seen, enjoyed and experienced with your own human eyes. Keep reading that word “human” as it will re-surface shortly as well as being central to this maelstrom of sporting madness. All of this, VAR included, is anti-human and my final rhetorical question is when are you going to get mad about the killing of your game?
Or are you too busy staring at your own shoes?
The perfunctory facts from a Saturday evening in old London town are that Curtis Jones was ridiculously sent off via VAR review on 25 minutes before Mo Salah set Luis Díaz free to run through on goal to score a brilliant opening goal for the 10 man Reds on 33 minutes. Although clearly onside, VAR made a “human error” (what larks!) and apparently believed the on-field decision to be a goal and so didn’t challenge the decision or reverse it when they could clearly see (if their eyes weren’t lying to them) that a human error had occurred. 3 minutes after this perfect example of the horrible folly of VAR, James Maddison split the Reds defence apart with a perfect through ball that Richarlison squared into the marauding run of Son Heung-min, and Tottenham grabbed a vital lead. Not to be outdone and playing against the type of playing with only 10 men, Liverpool deservedly grabbed an equaliser on the cusp of half-time through the curling cross of Dominik Szoboszlai, the header back across goal of captain Virgil van Dijk and a crisp shot on the turn from fellow Dutchman Cody Gakpo who appeared to injury himself in the process.
The second half saw the 10 man Reds of Liverpool simply being unable to escape their own half of the field before Diogo Jota, a substitute for the injured Gakpo, made 3 silly and reckless tackles in 5 minutes and so the 10 man Reds now became 9 men but quixotically and in the footballing vernacular, Spurs “ran out of ideas” even with the advantage of 2 extra players and with Jürgen Klopp having to resort to 2 banks of 4 in front of goalkeeper Alisson Becker, they were magnificent and largely untroubled until that fateful driven cross ricocheted from the shin of Joël Matip into the top corner of the Reds net.
Alas, football can be a cruel game at times.
The unbeaten run is over.
Long live the unbeaten run, starting on Thursday at Anfield against Royale Union Saint-Gilloise of Belgium in the Europa League.
Postscript
The fallout from Saturday evening’s shenanigans has continued and at the time of writing, this is bubbling away rather pleasingly with the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) releasing an almost immediate after match statement confirming a “significant human error” (what larks!) occurred and there was a “clear and factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention” and they would be contacting Liverpool immediately to “acknowledge the error”.
Late Sunday evening came the Liverpool reply in which they acknowledged the error and admission from PGMOL and “it is clear that the correct application of the laws of the game did not occur, resulting in sporting integrity being undermined”. The Reds damning statement ended thus:
“That such failings have already been categorised as “significant human error” is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.
This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.
In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution”.
The final two sentences above speak volumes and I hope Liverpool truly go for the jugular.
Game on.
A final word from The Boss
“I don’t think there is anything to say about the offside goal, I knew it at half-time. In the first moment I saw it, it’s clearly not offside but then it’s offside, so I try to think they have a better view and at half-time we knew. With normal pictures, it’s easy to see now. But I’m pretty sure whoever did that, made that decision, didn’t do it on purpose. It didn’t take extremely long to come to the conclusion. It’s a bit strange but somebody else has to clarify that. I have nothing else to say about it”.
“I told the boys directly after the game I am super-proud. Super, super-proud. I think especially with 10 men they were really good… did everything what was necessary really well and on top of that we were really dangerous. We created still so that’s good, top for us; red card for Curtis, probably everybody here in the room thinks it’s a clear red card, I see that different, just because I played football and most of you probably didn’t”.
“Nobody expects 100 per cent right decisions on-field but I think we all thought when VAR came in it might make things easier. I don’t know why, the people in the VAR are they that much under pressure? Today the decision was made really quick, I would say, for that goal? It changed the momentum of the game, that’s how it is”.
Thanks for reading!
Stephen Blackford, 2nd October 2023
Your low opinion of VAR is likely shared by North American sports fans towards its equivalents here. I know for sure it's as low as my low one on Hollywood's overreliance on CGI animation at the expense of the 2D form I love.