UEFA Competitions 2023-2024 Referee Discussions [Rs]

Within UEFA referee circles there's doubt if things went according to the rules with the Feyenoord free kick resulting in a goal, as it looks like the 2019 rules about where you may stand in relation to the opponent's wall, were violated.

 

Not to bring up Dale Johnson again, but these two UCL match days really confirmed that the EPL is essentially playing a different sport/playing under a completely set of different rules than the rest of Europe.

We've essentially seen more red cards for serious foul play, VAR intervention for handling, and just general affirmative decision making in 16 UCL matches than we have seen through what 50 EPL matches so far.

It's just jarring to watch.

I never thought in an era of VAR that we would be getting further apart between various competitions of the way the game was called. I thought we would be getting more uniform.

 

This looks alot like the Feyenoord free kick.

 

Stayed with original foul, rescinded red, someone on the orange bench got a yellow either for pre-review dissent or crowding the VAR screen. No other misconduct.

 

I don't know. I think maybe in the UCL and international competitions they might have followed suit to an extent, but I really don't think the rest of the European leagues would have followed suit.

The concept of "we don't give those" just doesn't really fly in Spain or Italy.

In Spain and Italy, they still basically go by the concept of "if there is contact, it's a foul" and I just don't think Spanish and Italian referees and the public would accept no intervention on the play last weekend against Tottenham where an attacker just got kicked in the achilles on the corner of the penalty area.

 

I think we had discussion back when that the EPL was missing the boat by pretending VARs weren’t here rather than accepting the inevitable and setting a standard. I think places like Spain and Italy would have been more accepting of a higher bar for intervention if things had started that way. I agree that “we just don’t call those” would be unlikely to fly, but I think ‘it wasn’t C&O” could have. But I also think once you start with C&O, creep towards the “better” call is essentially inevitable. It’s really hard to sell “yes, the ref was wrong in the game deciding call, but, too bad, the ref wasn’t wrong enough to fix it, even though the VAR knew it was wrong.” Really the only thing holding VAR back from re-refereeing games is the limit on situations where it can intervene. I still think we are likely to see some creep on that, most likely for 2CT and gk vs ck. And possibly for improper restart that leads to a goal.

 

I know we are discussing the Liverpool vs. Tottenham debacle ad nauseam, but the UCL is going on right and nothing really of note happened last night from a refereeing perspective except this.



Watch at 3:50 mark.

Speaking of ignoring the Laws, did the VAR and Orsato not ignore the Laws here in disallowing the goal? This was an accidental attacking handball that was not an immediate goal scoring opportunity

For "accidental" attacking handballs, it has to be an immediate goal scoring opportunity? Right?

Or does this still fall within the bounds of "immediate."

From the replays, it looks like there was no OFR. Thus, it was a factual review which means the VAR thought that A) it was an accidental handball and not a deliberate handball (if he deemed it deliberate than a review for APP can be triggered.

By the way Christina Unkel's analysis was completely wrong on this and she forgot the concept of "immediate" when praising the decision.

 

I think the point of immediate was to eliminate accidental handling unconnected to the goal. Here, the handling was the immediate precursor to the short scoring run. I think that meets the expectation of immediate. But I also haven’t seen anything defining the term in this context.

 

I really don’t like that intervention. Not the correct interpretation of “immediately” imo.

 

The question has to be was that immediate?

If the ball hit his hand at the half-way line or in his own penalty area and he dribbled all the way to score a goal are we ruling that out?

I'll concede if this happened in the penalty area, I'm not even bringing this up. The ball hit his hand almost 30 yards away from goal before he went on a dribble.

 

I think this is right on the borderline of what you could reasonably call “immediate.” It’s 4 seconds before the ball is in the net, he is straight through on goal with no other obstacle between the handling and the goal. I think it’s a little bit of a stretch, but I’m fine with a referee making that stretch given the subjectivity of “immediately.”

That does raise two further questions, though:

1) If the immediacy is subjective, shouldn’t this warrant an OFR instead of a factual review?

2) If the immediacy was not clear and obvious, did this warrant a review at all?

These questions could be squared if Orsato had already decided that the change in possession (which, unbeknownst to him, was with a hand) did lead immediately to the goal. I doubt this was ever communicated to the VAR, though.

More likely, the VAR decided himself that the goal was immediate, and instructed Orsato to do a factual review because the hand contact was factual. Not sure I like that, if it is what happened. Sure, one of the two required criteria was clear, obvious, and factual. But the other, very much, wasn’t.

 

How this isnot off side?
Wieffer intercepts a ball, passed to an off side player. If that player wasnot there, he wouldnot act.

Doelpunt Atlético Madrid. Feyenoord dacht nog even goed weg te komen door buitenspelval, maar dat wuift de scheidsrechter weg. Alvaro Morata maakt er 1-1 van. #ATMFEY #UCL pic.twitter.com/VRm62Le7Xy

— VTBL ⚽ (@vtbl) October 4, 2023

 

I’m still not a fan of the accidental HB rule at all. But if we have it, there needs to be guidance about what immediately means—and we’ve had that discussion before. We can all agree if it goes from hand to ground and is kicked into thr net, that’s immediate. And, I think, we can all agree that if the attacker dribbles away from the goal or starts in his own half, that isn’t immediate. But that leaves a lot of room. I’m *guessing* that the league has had discussions with referees and this is within what the standard they’ve agreed on—a direct movement to goal from the HB. If that’s the standard, I think it is consistent with the Law changes (including claw back from the originally stupid language). I think a much more narrow standard would also be consistent where, say, two dribbles alleviates “immediate.” But the ultimate problem is the standard itself—it inherently requires arbitrary lines to be drawn that create perverse actions (to the extent a player understands the lines and can think that fast).

 

Comical interaction VAR/Referee in the Greece vs Orange Squad match.
He gave the Dutch a penalty and the VAR told him to look on the screen, but after a look sticked to his decision.
Then in a later incident he waved away a penalty claim from the Dutch, but was told by the VAR to have look and again he decided to stick to his decision.
I personally thought the VAR was right in both cases, but in the end it cancelled each other out.

 

I was thinking that perhaps the VAR thought there should be a red card for the defender, since clearly it was a foul and no doubt about the penalty decision?

I agree with this analysis. I immediately thought this was a penalty in real time, but felt no way was he going to give it. I was surprised the VAR almost threw him under the bus.
And he had just given the Greece coach a red card as well! No point in throwing gasoline on a small fire!

PH