By now we have certainly come to grips that this is a sport with its flaws and scandals. Every other week you see news about someone backing the introduction of a video replay into the game (usually because it would’ve benefited that person’s team… surprise, surprise!). And usually to follow these sorts of comments comes a never-changing ‘No’ from Sepp Blatter.
During the World Cup, and even after, I’ve been asked my opinion, oftentimes after being told what the ‘right’ thing to do is for the sport from someone who is watching the World Cup, and will likely ONLY watch the World Cup, regardless if there is a change or not. (I should probably alert you that this is about to be an opinion piece on what my opinion is…)
Now, obviously there are two sides of the coin, but I’m looking for a third. There are pros and cons to having it in and not having it in, and some people choose to view the subject from very narrow-minded points of perspective.
So let’s say we DO introduce this video replay contraption. For starters, we have to decide on having limitations. Limitations are important. The whole argument against video replay stands largely on the grounds that introducing video replay would undermine a key aspect to the game—the free-flowing, few stoppage aspect of it. That’s why we need to decide where video replay begins and ends. Will it be used only for verifying the legality of a goal? Or will it be used on the spot to make a decision of whether a free kick, a yellow card, a red card, etc. are valid? OR will it be used for goal verification in-game and then be used to hand out post-game cards?
That’s where I begin to seriously question if this is really worth it past verifying a goal’s legality. For starters, you’re slowing down the game so somebody can analyze the footage. But beyond that you get to a point where the FIFA badge on the ref’s shirt begins to mean nothing. There needs to remain some subjectivity in the process. Also, let’s remember that a post-game yellow card can possibly end up suspending a player, but what if it were to be his second of that game? Wouldn’t that have POSSIBLY changed the flow, the outcome, EVERY ASPECT OF THE GAME IN QUESTION? I think it would!
However, to look even further you get a large feeling that a can of worms is about to be opened. To give an example outside of the football world, I’m going to go to… baseball. That’s right, baseball. I can’t stand watching it on a television, the constant breaks in between batting, the time-out calls from batters, pitchers meticulously looking every which way at runners they know they’re not going to throw out no matter how far off base they happen to stray. Before I grow TOO infuriated, I’ll get to the point. Recently the pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, Armando Galaragga, had a perfect game blown by a call—who knew that God didn’t create humans as perfect?! A lot of pressure came on Bud Selig to reverse the call, post-game, and award Galaragga the perfect game. Bud Selig denied that request and rightfully so (in my opinion!). If you begin to overturn calls like that post-game, where does it end? And even though the video replays do show that the call made on the spot was incorrect, in real time it was a decision that had to be made in milliseconds. On the spot replay may have been helpful but how long would it have taken? Every time I see a play challenged in the NFL, I see a herd of zebras gather under some curtained camera looking thing (possibly smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer?) for minutes! This is not what we need. Can you imagine a game with 30 minutes stoppage time? I dread that, I really do.
Then of course we have the other option which is we don’t intervene. Worst case scenario? Nothing changes. That’s really about it. Is that SO bad?
Another point to add in here. What about every blown call in the history of the sport? Do we revisit those? Do we ask England and Argentina’s 1986 squads to meet again and play a rematch? I mean I would love to see Maradona’s flubber (and the 10 pounds that the camera adds) flopping about on the pitch, but…
My official position is, if you want to introduce it, introduce it for goal verification purposes only. There’s absolutely no need to add beyond that. And besides. Why are we supposed to listen to what outsiders of the sport want? Why must we appease them? Why is it so important that football…er… soccer is liked in America? Let them hate, Jim Rome needs to keep his job, people! What would that man do if suddenly America actually liked soccer? And I mean GENUINELY. Not the ‘hey, that soccer thing doesn’t look so bad’ bull spit we see and hear every four years. So the USA FINALLY had a taste of those kinds of last-minute finger-nail biters that we’ve come to love and hate, and that’s supposedly going to change everything? Shouldn’t their quarter-final appearance in 02′ been the tipping point then? THEY PLAYED MEXICO IN THAT TOURNAMENT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Reporting from the A.D.D. clinic, this is Paulo Pincaro…
Written By Paulo
Pincaro
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Excellent.
This is a HUGE can of worms when you look at retrospective calls/decisions enacted after the fact. I’m wholly against it. In my opinion if video replay technology is used at all it should be used to review controversial calls about the most basic yet vital things like did a ball go into the net or not. With minimal disruption to the game in mind at all times, someone would have to review the footage as quickly as possible and decide definitively then and there. Then the decision would be taken and the play would go on with the outcome of the decision in place.
The only tricky thing there is in determining how long is a reasonable amount of time to stop the game to review video. Is it something you can force into a few minutes? i.e. you have a deadline of 5 minutes to make this decision. (Even 5 minutes can throw players seriously off their game.) Chances are with the new perspective video replay provides someone WOULD be able to make the decision that quickly, as we often experience on our TV screens with replays that are a clear-cut case when we have the benefit of seeing them from a different angle. But there will always be decisions that cause controversy from any angle, what then? Like you said, do we let the game rack up a half hour stoppage?