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The 2023-2024 Football Thread
- Thread starter Scepticalscribe
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I get the impression Sancho is trying to engineer a move away from United by being awkward/disruptive as apparently he has been banned from all first team facilities. If the rumor's are true it is not looking good for Sancho.
metro.co.uk
Man Utd star banned from all first-team facilities
Three team-mates have urged him to apologise...
metro.co.uk
And their opponents are going to be well up for it come the weekend when we face them. Worst time to play any side is when they have just been thrashed.
Big match at the weekend for Liverpool, away against a Spurs team with extra rest. I expect tough contest based on what I saw of the Arsenal - Spurs derby. Spurs have a few injuries though, which means (among other things) I have to see more of Richarlison, who is a serial pest.
But now that it is here, the people who called for it, and the people who spent the money to implement it, will defend its existence to the death. So it is unlikely to ever be gotten rid of. Though, as I said above, it will only ever be a 'solution' in the richest leagues.
I think your post reflects the majority opinion, and I do think VAR is here to stay. There is a perception that it 'catches more things', which is partially true - but it also 'catches' a lot of things that never needed to be caught, and introduces more issues than it solves. It also means increasingly moving football towards an NFL-style game with many long stoppages (watch this space over the next 20 years) and increasing disparity between the game at the elite level (with all its electronic toys) and all other levels, where VAR will never be implemented. Which will serve to exacerbate financial and gender inequality in the game.
But now that it is here, the people who called for it, and the people who spent the money to implement it, will defend its existence to the death. So it is unlikely to ever be gotten rid of. Though, as I said above, it will only ever be a 'solution' in the richest leagues.
I suspect in the US there is more of an acceptance of VAR. I don’t know any UK based supporters who pushed for it who would mourn its passing.
Video review has been part of American sports for many decades. So yes, we've already had VAR, more or less, for many years. But football is one of the few sports that has a more constant flow and I'm protective of that. I don't want football to become a game of stoppages and reviews.
If you want lots of stoppages and reviews, watch NFL or rugby or whatever. It's OK that refs make mistakes, that's part of the game, it's part of life. Note that advocates of VAR say it will 'catch' more things - but it still won't be perfect, so when VAR gets it wrong we've still sacrificed the flow of the game for...nothing. And it won't fix the offside rule - it has, as I explained previously, probably made it worse.
We'll never again get to see a late world cup final-winning goal scored and the player whip his shirt off and run to the crowd in a moment of spontaneous joy - instead, forever into the future, we get to watch a VAR review. Everything has become more plastic. But I'm just shouting at a cloud here - the technocrats have won that argument and I am not trying to change it. But it doesn't mean they were right.
VAR technology works and works very well. The problem is it still requires a human to interpret what they are seeing and that is why VAR fails the way it does. A human is the one who decides if it's offside or not, a human decides if it's a handball, a human decides if it's a foul.
It's like with old laws, many many have not been updated to factor in the digital age and football is no different. The rules of the game are outdated and now need updating to factor in that VAR technology has the ability with near pin point accuracy to show rules breaches.
Take the biggest contention, the offside rule. VAR can now with pin point accuracy show if a player is offside down to the players finger, nose, knee cap or boot toe but when the offside rule was written, there was no why in hell the ref or linesman could see with such accuracy but now they can with the help of technology but the rule has not been updated to factor in the accuracy that this technology gives.
The rules need to be re-written to factor in how accurate VAR can be.
It's like with old laws, many many have not been updated to factor in the digital age and football is no different. The rules of the game are outdated and now need updating to factor in that VAR technology has the ability with near pin point accuracy to show rules breaches.
Take the biggest contention, the offside rule. VAR can now with pin point accuracy show if a player is offside down to the players finger, nose, knee cap or boot toe but when the offside rule was written, there was no why in hell the ref or linesman could see with such accuracy but now they can with the help of technology but the rule has not been updated to factor in the accuracy that this technology gives.
The rules need to be re-written to factor in how accurate VAR can be.
I think the ‘problem’ is when we see humans as the ‘problem.’
The game is played by, reffed by, and watched by humans. That should never change. Technology is just a tool. Letting it dictate the laws of the game is not, in my opinion, a good idea.
No law of the game that involves ‘intent’ or ‘advantage’ is completely reachable purely through technology. There will always be a (fallible) human at the end of the decision making process.
And as for the offside lines drawn on the screen - don’t believe the lines. Even the rule makers have acknowledged they are an imperfect visual aid and can be wrong.
Goal line technology does give us more precision. It is arguable whether VAR also does. It gives us more angles and we can look at things at unnaturally slow speeds or in freeze frame. But then we’re reffing a slo-mo match, not the real one.
Not sure, I'm afraid, I hear nothing but complaints about it....ESPN+ was cheaper and simpler.
Sweden - Italy 1-0
Not a very good match, but stable, a win and 3 points.
A possibility to rotate some players too.
The olympic dream are still alive 😍
Not a very good match, but stable, a win and 3 points.
A possibility to rotate some players too.
The olympic dream are still alive 😍
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Re VAR, there is another thought I would like to add to the discussion.
With the increasing wealth of the Premier League - and the consequent penalty of enormous costs (not only financial) to teams if results don't go their way, the rewards for a top four finish, for example are vastly greater than rewards (or penalties, such as relegation) for those who finsih lower down the table - the pressure on referees must be immense.
Add to that, is the fact that their income is an ever decreasing fraction, or percentage, of that of those (the players) over whom they sit in judgment on the football field, - and this, in a world where income is perceived to be some form of definition of success - and also remmeber that the threats that referees (and their staff) have been on the receiving end of, have intensified, in some cases.
Human error is not deemed an acceptable excuse, or explanation, for fans, or board members, or footballers, when the costs to teams of such human error can be so high, and the supports given to referees less than ideal.
It should come as small surprise that referees may be in need of the support given by an ostensibly neutral - or impartial - piece of technology, such as VAR, in order to add heft and weight (and independent support) to their onfield decisions.
With the increasing wealth of the Premier League - and the consequent penalty of enormous costs (not only financial) to teams if results don't go their way, the rewards for a top four finish, for example are vastly greater than rewards (or penalties, such as relegation) for those who finsih lower down the table - the pressure on referees must be immense.
Add to that, is the fact that their income is an ever decreasing fraction, or percentage, of that of those (the players) over whom they sit in judgment on the football field, - and this, in a world where income is perceived to be some form of definition of success - and also remmeber that the threats that referees (and their staff) have been on the receiving end of, have intensified, in some cases.
Human error is not deemed an acceptable excuse, or explanation, for fans, or board members, or footballers, when the costs to teams of such human error can be so high, and the supports given to referees less than ideal.
It should come as small surprise that referees may be in need of the support given by an ostensibly neutral - or impartial - piece of technology, such as VAR, in order to add heft and weight (and independent support) to their onfield decisions.
You are spot on that the money in the game leads to pressure to not flub big calls, because there is so much money riding on those decisions (hmm....maybe give refs a bigger slice of the pie, then?).
The irony is the scale of unpunished or inadequately punished 'human error' we are seeing from club owners (Todd Boehly, Farhad Moshiri), club suits like Ed Woodward, the people running UEFA (lied about rthe crowd trouble at the CL final between Liverpool and Real), and various FAs (e.g. the ongoing disaster that is the RFEF)...
Maybe we need VAR for the transfer market and 'fit and proper persons' test...
All we want from refs is 'consistency,' the proper football men shout - by which we mean perfection - but we don't demand it from anyone else in the game.
Finally, a comfortable game for United. Even Anthony Martial scored! Even van de Beek got in the game!
Pleased by what Mount and Amrabat brought to the table. The latter already looks like a force multiplier for Casemiro, who's looking like his old, imperious self again. (Yes, I know it's Palace they're playing against.)
Pleased by what Mount and Amrabat brought to the table. The latter already looks like a force multiplier for Casemiro, who's looking like his old, imperious self again. (Yes, I know it's Palace they're playing against.)
Well it is probably about the only trophy they could win this season! 😝
Not looking forward to going to Lincoln City tomorrow. They will be well up for it.
Those Man Utd fans will be happy tonight, they will sleep very well because not long ago things were looking very bad. They played well, scored 3 goals and defended better. Is Martial back to his best? Casemiro didn't look old like several weeks ago, he had much more energy👍
Andrea Möllerberg have today become the first female, ever, Secretary General of the Swedish Football Association.
This is really good news, not a day too late.
Haven’t checked how many women are in those power positions in the world of football, but doubt there are many.
This is really good news, not a day too late.
Haven’t checked how many women are in those power positions in the world of football, but doubt there are many.
US Soccer currently have a female president, Cindy Parlow Cone (in her second term, actually). Her election as first-ever female president in 2020 was preceded by the previous president resigning after making disparaging remarks about female athletes (it never ends).
Overall her time at US Soccer has been more or less a success, despite heading the drama-factory that is US Soccer.
Lise Klaveness has been the president of the Norwegian FA for a year and a half...or thereabouts:
Lise Klaveness - Wikipedia
Not only a woman, but an openly gay woman, so probably very rare...
We have a female tea lady, I am fairly certain. There was talk of her being transferred to Liverpool some time ago, but they upped her biscuit allowance and she stayed. Not sure if she's still with us.
So you could say she is a rich tea lady? 😛
(That may go over the head of our US cousins).
Kosovare Asllani, our new captain in our team, held a speech about the place and 'arena' where they played against Italy. I haven’t heard her make a lot of public speech around football before, but as the new captain she is very passionate and totally amazing. She talked about the so called arena Italy had to receive Sweden at.
From Asllani's perspective she said that she had seen more animals than people out there.
Meaning, how could the Italian call such a small soccerfield out in the woods the women’s national arena?
Glad that the Women who play football here have it a lot better today!
From Asllani's perspective she said that she had seen more animals than people out there.
Meaning, how could the Italian call such a small soccerfield out in the woods the women’s national arena?
Glad that the Women who play football here have it a lot better today!
A rather nervy 1-0 win away to Lincoln for our B team. Still glad we side stepped that banana skin!