2018 World Cup running thread

For me, one of the principal uses of VAR should be simulation calls—not just feigned contact, but overreaction to contact. I think Neymar's shit the other day is card worthy. It's horrible for the game.

 

Guess it's often tough to call. Ronaldo's PK vs Spain wasn't an overreaction, but think he saw the defender stick his leg out and went right
into him.

 

I wish refs could send players off due to injury (with a replacement) if they think the player is too hurt to continue. It would cut way down on the bad acting.

 

Can they do like the NFL, NBA and NHL and judge the flop after the game and if nothing else, delete fair play points since those are a tiebreaker?

Guys in the NHL are frequently fined for moves not penalized during the game.

 

I’m not sure how I feel. I used to be a pretty standard soccer-mocking American, but have come around on the World Cups for the last decade and have watched a ton of this one.

I guess I’ve come to understand the flopping a little more? With an official who’s going to end up out of position so often, it feels like the players’ way of saying “hey, you missed some shit while you were running to catch up.” Football and basketball don’t need that because they have officials in nearly every position they need to be. Neymar, as stupid as he looked, was drawing attention to the fact that someone stepped on his freaking ankle, which no one would have ever noticed if he hadn’t gone nuts.

He definitely looked stupid though. I don’t know. I feel like it’s so baked in that officials work with it rather than try to eliminate it, that they rely on it to pick up shady stuff they can’t see and trust themselves to know when to ignore the players pushing it too far. There have definitely been some cards given on plays where it seemed like the only reason anyone stopped to think about it or check a review was the afflicted player was acting like he stepped on a land mine.

It’s totally possible I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about though.

 

How about more than one referee? And no, the ARs on the sideline are not enough.

Hockey added a second referee, and the system works better, I don’t see why soccer can’t.

And it doesn’t change the game.

 

Colombia (or insert team here) dicks around for four minutes after a foul is awarded, and before Kane's PK. Absolutely unnecessary wasted time; it's absurd that it took so long to administer a PK because Colombia wouldn't line up. Yet at the end, when they trail, their shitty behavior is rewarded, with five minutes of extra time. Has to be a way to determine who wasted the most time, and if that team is trailing, subtract it from added time.

 

This is novel. Usually the British press moaning about play-acting and time-wasting doesn't start until after England go out of a tournament. We truly live in interesting times.
There is a cloud hanging over this World Cup and Fifa must not ignore it | Stuart James

 

That column is pretty much spot-on. And doesn't spare England from joining the play-acting.

My brother calls it the "magic sponge" when a South American or African player apparently one inch from death is miraculously revived by one touch of the physio's sponge applying water.

 

Don't forget the special spray that they also use

 

Is that spray approved by Livingstone Bramble?