It’s a typical mid season game day at The Mestalla. Los Che are up 1-0. Massive flags extolling the virtues of the club and Valencia itself wave majestically over the crowd’s heads. All is well in the land of Els Taronges.
Suddenly, Messi has the ball on the right side of Valencia’s goal.
Going to his left, La Pulga Atomica shrugs off one defender, jumps over the lunging tackle of another, and unleashes a trademark knuckling shot, right at Valencia’s goalkeeper. The ball hits the goalie square in the chest, slips out of his grasp, and hits the ground between his legs, just past the goal line. The smaller crowd of Barcelona fans go wild! The undefeated season will live on after all!
The referee doesn’t blow his whistle, but waves play on to the goalkeeper, who, having grabbed the ball in a panic after that one bounce past the goal line, is only too happy to oblige. Roars of indignant rage, including mine, aimed at my phone screen fill the air. Many replays show the ball clearly and completely going past the line, but not even the commentators’ disbelief will change the ref’s mind.
We all just have to get over it.
You see, unlike many other European leagues, La Liga does not use goal line technology. It’s a good, proven system. It works. But for complicated and likely stupid reasons most likely to do with money, it isn’t yet universal. What is, almost, is the Video Assistant Referee, or VAR.
It is very similar to the video replay in the NFL, except the final decision is always left to the referee on the field. However, unlike the universally welcome goal line technology, VAR is mostly derided by fan and pundits alike.
Chief among their complaints is that VAR destroys the spirit of the game, which apparently includes controversy and unfair decisions breaking the hearts of some fans and bringing glory to others. Some have even complained that it doesn’t give them much to talk about at the pub after the game; one pundit even writing how VAR would’ve erased the infamous “Hand Of God” goal, therefore robbing the soccer lovers the world over of decades of talking points!
Yes, gentle readers, all the whinging is about having less to argue about. Not right or wrong, not winning or losing fairly. It has nothing to do with all the inch-close offside calls that were missed, all the diving and playacting that resulted in unjust red cards, all the sneaky elbows to the jaw and stamps on ankles that went unpunished; nothing to do with such injustices that more often than not changed the outcome of games.
It’s all about not having enough to argue about after the game in the pub while drinking and gradually losing all sense.
To these so called fans I say, stop your bellyaching and get over it! VAR has so far worked as perfectly as possible, and has righted quite a few wrongs on the field of play. Just think of those of us who have to do without some of the technology available to your team and gnash our teeth every time an incorrect call on the field costs us a game or points, and get on with your life.
And if you must argue, you always have VAR.