The Soccer Thread (Version 9)

Yeah, the off the line calls on the PKs should not be reviewable.

 

USWNT up 1-0 in the third minute off a corner scramble.

 

Fantastic goal by Tobin Heath to the near post. But I think VAR will wipe it out due to Lloyd being offside.

Edit: Well, as a former GK, I think it should have been disallowed. As an American soccer fan, I'm glad it wasn't.

 

And now they changed the scoring to own goal.

 

The fact that the defender is somehow deemed to have played the ball negating the offsides call is ridiculous. She's not sticking her leg out there but for the fact that Lloyd is behind her.

 

And that's just silly.

 

I saw some definition of offside that said because she didn't play it or attempt to play it and didn't interfere with the defender's ability to play it wasn't offside, although that last point can be argued.

That said if by the letter of the law that's true then it is dumb because she certainly impacted play. Sometimes these rules get so complex that common sense goes by the wayside.

 

Then they add 7 minutes of stoppage time, I'd guess because of the VAR review, and yet Scotland-Argentina got none yesterday. So many head scratchers.

 

I think that the VAR was around 4 minutes so it isn’t crazy.

 

My point was they didn't give any stoppage time in the end of the Scotland-Argentina match yesterday and it was much more important of a situation and a longer delay/review. Just weird officiating. That is all.

 

Zero stoppage time? I don't think I've ever seen that in professional or international soccer. That's nuts.

 

Well, they did award four minutes. But by the time they sorted out a VAR decision on a penalty kick, then VAR'd again on whether or not the keeper came off the line to make the save and do it over, it was in the 94th minute (it all started fairly well before the 90th) and they basically blew the whistle that it was over. The four minutes was light but it even then probably shouldn't have started until all that was done. Both teams pretty much needed to win to advance. The U.S.-Sweden game getting seven minutes for a shorter review and way fewer goals just seemed crazy to me.

And honestly I've never seen anything like that either.

Just a lot of weird calls and obviously no idea how to actually implement VAR -- such as in the Scotland-Argentina match it made the right call on the penalty but then wiped out at least 10 minutes of playable time at the end of a crucial match.