Agreed.
Also agreed.
3 comments on Copa America: 1) VAR is taking an incredibly long time for them 2) way more injury faking than in the WWC 3) Argentina look bad.
It’s not a new rule. The Rule has ALWAYS been that keepers cannot advance before the ball is kicked. It is a rule which has, in the past, had some spotty enforcement. A few years back, FIFA told the men to knock it off, and for the most part, they have. Not shocking that VAR is being used to enforce the rule.
Penalty kicks are intended to be almost certain goals. That’s the point. That’s why you’re not supposed to do the things that are direct free kick fouls inside the penalty area. It’s really a pretty simply concept.
The “must have at least one foot on the line” part is new, isn’t it?
The Premier League in England isn’t going to use VAR to enforce it next season, leaving it up to the onfield officials.
Exactly, and the failure to enforce it has been decisive in some games. The failure to penalize American and South Korean keepers in the 1999 Women’s World Cup Final and 2002 World Cup Semifinals for prematurely leaving their line is quite directly the reason why the USA and South Korea won those PK shootouts.
No. The rule has always been that the 'keeper must be on the line, and cannot move forward until the ball is kicked. The only thing that changed was that the law was amended a few years back* to allow side-to-side movement by the 'keeper prior to the ball being kicked.
*Just looked this up and it’s actually been since 1997! :eek:
Some sloppy passing by USA so far. Looks like they have to get used to playing a more skilled and faster team again. Just a little lackadaisical on defense allowing some chances that Sweden shouldn’t have.
I’m watching with the sound off – can someone explain what the question about the second goal was? That VAR took a while and it seemed clear that the offsides was the previous play, and after the defender kicked it forward, it was a new play (where no one was offsides). Or, do I have the rule wrong? How far back in time can an missed offsides call affect the play?
Here’s what I think I understood from the commentary (although I could easily be wrong): The US player (Lloyd) was in an offside position when the pass was made, but she didn’t touch the ball and was not a part of the play. Then, once the Swedish defender touched the ball, a ‘new play’, as you described it, began.
The replay was to determine if, in fact, she was part of the play. If she was, offside would have been called.
Here’s what Wikisays about the rule:
Being in an offside position is not an offence in itself; a player who was in an offside position at the moment the ball last touched, or was played, by a teammate, must then become involved in active play in the opinion of the referee, in order for an offence to occur
That’s what I figured, but it seemed like a no-brainer. The VAR ref took forever and then still passed it on to the main ref for a final determination.
They really need to speed up the VAR process. Jeez.
I thought the speed of VAR in the major leagues and during the 2018 WC was pretty good. If it turns out that was an aberration, I will be pretty unhappy about it.
Agreed. It was painfully obvious in the Men’s World Cup last year that the process needed improvement. Hasn’t happened yet.
ETA: Obviously Snarky Kong and I disagree!
Norway vs. Australia is the best match of the tournament so far, imho. I was cheering for Australia, but I gotta say the better team ended up winning. They just generated so many better opportunities late in the game and in extra time. The Aussie goalie game up huge twice, but it wasn’t enough, and then they choked in PKs.
Curious what more knowledgeable posters thing about some of the close officiating calls, particularly the no-PK on the handball, the red card, and several possible PKs vs Norway.
Tomorrow I would LOVE to see Brazil beat France, as the USA and Brazil haven’t played at this level since their epic quarterfinal 8 years ago, almost certainly the greatest game in the history of women’s soccer.
Hopefully France-Brazil will be good, and either would set up an entertaining match with the US. That game 8 years ago was great, but I give the edge to the Canada-US game from the London olympics as my favourite match of all time.
One thing I’ve noticed while watching the Cup so far is the lack of teeth-grinding on my part when the players fall at the drop at the hat and writhe on the ground as though they had compound fracture. Men’s soccer has to give out far more post-game reds and yellows for diving and acting. The women just don’t do that – they dive much less (at least the games I’ve seen) and they don’t writhe around like a child waiting to see if a parent saw their owie before just getting up and playing again.
But, ugh, penalty kicks! It’s like a coin flip. If I were god-emperor of soccer, after putting in an extra field ref and allowing at least twice as many subs, I would change the post-game PK as follows:
Have it be two-on-two, two attackers, one defender and the goalie. The attackers start at the midpoint and can pass back and forth or whatever. The defender has to try and break up the play and the goalie does her thing. The attackers get one shot on goal (determined when the goalie touches it, the play goes out of bounds, or there’s a goal). For each attempt, the attackers have to be switched, but the defender can stay or be subbed at the defending team’s option.
While I missed most of this game due to a sick pet, I did catch parts of it here and there. It struck me that the Australian players appeared to have little chemistry with each other. They really weren’t connecting with each other.
I saw a bunch of hardworking and talented individuals, but not a lot of cohesion. Norway was the better team, but not overwhelmingly so; they had better teamwork and more patience. They also appeared to be more practiced with PKs, which paid off in the end.
The PK phase was a disaster to watch. There has to be a better way to resolve a game.
I’d love to contribute but spent too much time being distracted to make any cogent observations.
The Brazilian women’s team is generally over-hyped. I’ve never considered them a big threat over the years, but I like to cheer for the underdog in games where I have no vested interest in the winner. It would certainly be fun (and unexpected) to see them beat France.
France is beatable but I don’t realistically expect Brazil to be the team that does that unless the officiating becomes blatantly lopsided and/or several of France’s starters collapse from disease or injury.
Of course, anyone can get lucky if a confluence of outlier events and luck occur. Maybe that will happen, but it’s probably not likely.
I’m watching England/Cameroon game and that was not intentionally passed to the goalie. Bullshit call.
What happened? I just turned it on halfway through the second half, in time to see England’s defense give a ridiculous gift to Cameroon, who failed to convert.
I hadn’t started watching at that point, but my comment is: if you’ve got to have VAR, is it too much to ask to have them get it right? Or at least consistent?
VAR overrules an offside called on England to award a goal, then overrules a non-call to disallow a goal for Camaroon. Both were close, but the English player was far more offside-- especially on replay.
There was a ball in the Cameroon box. The Cameroon player had a bad touch and ended up kicking it back towards the goal. Looked like she was going to try and kick it out of there but the goalie dove over and picked it up. Since the goalie can’t pick it up if the ball is intentionally passed back to her, it was called as an indirect free kick and England scored.
The thing is, it wasn’t intentionally passed back, it was a bad touch. I’m not sure what the exact rule is, of course – if it is that you can’t intentionally kick it back towards the goal at all, then maybe it was a good call, but I thought you just couldn’t pass it back intentionally, which this clearly wasn’t.