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Lee Mason - VAR


Yes it does as there is still that error of margin of the frame rate as explained in my last post. It's impossible to get it correct to the mm, even cm in my opinion even if they had 100FPS video or faster.

We all need to accept they can't call it perfectly every time but it's pointless going back to the human method. That's why I'm suggesting they shift it but in favour of the attacker so all the error of margin has gone from the attacker. That means no more goals belatedly ruled out by a debatable offside pissing of fans who've gone mental after a goal only to have it taken away. It's far easier to accept the attacker may have been offside as a defending team fan as you're pissed off anyway.

Aye it's gone the other way in our favour but these days it's all about money and not the match day fans. This is why I'd prefer the lesser of 2 evils and have no debatable onside goals spoiling the emotion of a goal by it coming crashing down and some debatable offside goals making me slightly more pissed off.

Some say "get rid of it all together" but do people really want to go back to the days where a lino flags instantly to kill celebrations only to get home and see on TV that a player was clearly or sometimes yards onside and get pissed off even more? Or the very little known fact that a lino would stop play before a goal is even allowed to be scored? I'll use Chris Rigg's FA Cup goal as an example as Ba would have been flagged straight away before he pulled it back to Rigg to smash it in. I know Ba was offside but imagine if Ba was actually onside and the lino flagged incorrectly stopping play, we'd have never seen Rigg's goal in the first place! It makes you wonder how many attacking moves have been stopped pre VAR then could have resulted in goals! That's why that rule about letting the attack continue is in place now to stop this happening again.

Fans aren't as forgiving when they see it at the match or on TV that shows a slow mo and freeze frame that makes deciding much easier. I'm no ref or linesman but I can appreciate how hard it is to run the line or ref a game as it's impossible to see everything, hence why we have VAR. As fans, we don't allow them to make mistakes but it's also the money now involved that mistakes made on the pitch shouldn't be left and that the majority are corrected and this is why we have VAR and it's not going away.

Try this and grab a pen and paper and play the 1st video on a big TV (rather than phone) and watch the 25 clips. Write down your answers and then watch the answers after. I can guarantee you won't get 25 out of 25 and you will feel you're guessing quite often as to what you thought you saw. The 2nd video has some dodgy freeze frames but it gives the answer afterwards and again some will have you in disbelief at the ones frozen correctly. Bear in mind this is a basic offside in the comfort of your home and not live with loads of players running everywhere while you're trying to keep a straight line of vision and also trying to see when the precise moment the ball is played!


You talk about going back as if it’s some bygone age.... it’s exactly what we are watching every week at Sunderland now. For all the week in week out criticisms on officials in this division it’s never about offsides. I maintain linesmen do a great job on the whole with offsides and I would rather have the entertainment we enjoy rather than seemingly every other goal being punctuated by VAR checks.
Dump it I say.
 
2cm? Dunno but I won't be in the decision making room, it's fairly arbitrary. It just builds in a margin of error because at the minute they can't get the exact moment the ball is kicked, nor the line at exactly the furthest forward point of the body that can legally be used to score a goal.

Fans should demand a margin of error on technology that cannot be precise, like in cricket where marginal calls are referred back to the original umpire's call. Then it's up to the higher ups to decide on a reasonable margin of error - I think the Dutch use a 5cm margin of error, we can study if that is reasonable or not based on the last 2 seasons of it being used in the eredvise.
The wider lines are already in place in the Premier League since 2021/22 to give a benefit of doubt allowance, it's just not as visible on a TV screen and fans can't see this. I explained a bit about it HERE linking to this article and mention the Dutch thing from 2020.



The problem is fans aren't aware of this (no matter how many times I say it :lol:) so they still think every offside is down to a toenail, eyelash when in fact it's been given a slight advantage to the attacker. If they zoomed in on the lines to show it clearer it would help but they don't so it looks like the lines are very close. It's still not enough in my opinion but with the semi-automated tech they could easily build a variable allowance in as I explained previously somewhere ;)

I'll try rp show this in (what I hope is) a simple explanation of how the thicker lines work as it's a piece of piss for me to understand given I knew it was in place ages ago. The 1st image is the old way with thin lines with the red line of the defender and the blue line being the attacker. The attacking team is going to left to right in this example. The blue line would have to be still level or at least show to the left of the red line for it to still be onside. This is the case in the 1st set of colours on the left of the image so it's onside. To be offside it only had to be showing a 1 pixel thickness of blue to the right to rule it offside so all the other 3 comparisons are offside. Or vice versa depending on which half it is as this example is a team attacking to the right. These decisions were very debatable due to FPS and accuracy of the pixels selected for the lines!


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Another not well known part of the change is that if any part of the 2 lines cross then it's still onside. Looking back at the above image means all of those 4 example are now onside as they overlap slightly. That alone was an improvement but the thicker lines mean even more of an advantage to the attacker.

This is the new method below with thicker lines as both players have thicker lines. I think by now most will know which of the 4 examples below would be onside and which ones would be offside (click here to see answer - 1st 3 are onside and 4th is offside due to clear gap).

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This wider line and overlapping giving an advantage to the attacker isn't widespread knowledge or understood amongst fans (even pundits). A few on here will know about it as I have for a while and maybe others who read this post will understand how it now works. It doesn't help given the shitty long distance VAR TV images you can't always see the fine gap between the lines when it is given offside.

This is what fans rightly complain about even though there is actually an advantage given to the attacker unless when it first came in. They can't see the advantage as easily as you can in the 2 above images as it would look like this on the TV.



That's because the quality of the image is shite, though the fact that it still isn't always enough to eliminate the error margin of the 50FPS. That's why the semi-automated stuff they're bringing in could allow the margin so that only offsides are 100% correct calls and so what if there's a goal allowed that's a debatable offside.
 
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The old system used to be better. Clear daylight, obvious offside. When you start looking at lines and sections of arms/legs/earholes..... you're gunna end up making mistakes.

VAR is a good thing, the problem is too often it's being used incorrectly.

Bit of a shame he's lost his job mind but it was a poor error.
 
Sitting watching rugby just now. You hear the interjections by the video ref and the discussion with the ref. Works perfectly and they get decisions right and quickly.

How can a bigger, wealthier sport like football make such a pig’s ear of it?

To much intervention in rugby matches over here. Every time a tackles made everyone holds their breath in case the video bugger intervenes.
 
You talk about going back as if it’s some bygone age.... it’s exactly what we are watching every week at Sunderland now. For all the week in week out criticisms on officials in this division it’s never about offsides. I maintain linesmen do a great job on the whole with offsides and I would rather have the entertainment we enjoy rather than seemingly every other goal being punctuated by VAR checks.
Dump it I say.
Probably because the debatable offsides don't happen as often as we think as it's not as closely scrutinised as we don't have the tech. How many times does 1 team have their goals ruled out by VAR in a season due to a debatable offside? I don't think it's that many as some are clearly offside when it's shown. Also bear in mind that a linesman doesn't flag close decisions when VAR is there though they can flag blatantly obvious ones but they must be 100% sure. They may not even flag after a goal as they know VAR are left to sort the shite out for offside, not them.

I'm long past the "get rid" stage as it's not going away that's for sure given the global market of the game. If they somehow did get rid of it then you'd soon have officials fearful of doing games due to the scrutiny they get. They could never remove VAR now as all hell would break loose every time there's an obvious error, especially being offside by a few feet or yards. Officials would be ripped to shreds online and possibly even abused physically as there's just too many knackers in the world not willing to accept they make mistakes as they think it's a piece of piss to ref a game or run the line calling offsides.

The irony is that people may go on about Lee Mason making a mistake but the ref and linesman also missed the 2nd offside also. Brentford's goal would still have been allowed in the old days so still would have had people kicking off about it like they did pre VAR (probably calling for VAR if it still hadn't been implemented). If the lino or ref had seen it then they would have told Lee Mason to review it also. He was already checking another possible offside prior and taking time so rushed it and missed it. The semi-automated system that's coming in would have picked it up both offsides within seconds. There would have been no need for the lengthy review of the potential block on the 1st offside as the 2nd one instantly means offside regardless so no review by Lee Mason even required. The sooner the automated stuff comes in the better for the PL as it's not going away no matter how much people hate it. It just needs to be improved and allow the attacker as big an advantage as fairly possible.

It's not as big an issue further down the leagues as it's more the match day fans (and few 100 thousands watching on TV) that the onfield officials piss off when making mistakes. At the top in the Premier League, Champions League games teams are making 100s millions a season and the old ways of random incorrect decisions can be costly. That's why they will never go back to the 3 onfield officials as although VAR still makes mistakes they're not as obvious or common. They need to get rid of that "clear and obvious" crap also as how can a ref not give a penna so can't be overruled as it's not clear and obvious but most refs would give the penna. In other words if the ref had given a penna then fewer people would have debated the decision.

It's also the millions betting globally along with being watched by over 1 billion people that influence this. Sadly our 40k crowds opinion mean nothing to the people who control it all. They know most fans will ultimately just accept it and in time those kids growing up now won't even know what it was like pre VAR and take it as the norm. It's here to stay but they need to improve it and start with the offside using the semi automated with margin of error and getting rid of the "clear and obvious" shite and just correct mistakes best they can.
 
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Yes it does as there is still that error of margin of the frame rate as explained in my last post. It's impossible to get it correct to the mm, even cm in my opinion even if they had 100FPS video or faster.

We all need to accept they can't call it perfectly every time but it's pointless going back to the human method. That's why I'm suggesting they shift it but in favour of the attacker so all the error of margin has gone from the attacker. That means no more goals belatedly ruled out by a debatable offside pissing of fans who've gone mental after a goal only to have it taken away. It's far easier to accept the attacker may have been offside as a defending team fan as you're pissed off anyway.

Aye it's gone the other way in our favour but these days it's all about money and not the match day fans. This is why I'd prefer the lesser of 2 evils and have no debatable onside goals spoiling the emotion of a goal by it coming crashing down and some debatable offside goals making me slightly more pissed off.

Some say "get rid of it all together" but do people really want to go back to the days where a lino flags instantly to kill celebrations only to get home and see on TV that a player was clearly or sometimes yards onside and get pissed off even more? Or the very little known fact that a lino would stop play before a goal is even allowed to be scored? I'll use Chris Rigg's FA Cup goal as an example as Ba would have been flagged straight away before he pulled it back to Rigg to smash it in. I know Ba was offside but imagine if Ba was actually onside and the lino flagged incorrectly stopping play, we'd have never seen Rigg's goal in the first place! It makes you wonder how many attacking moves have been stopped pre VAR then could have resulted in goals! That's why that rule about letting the attack continue is in place now to stop this happening again.

Fans aren't as forgiving when they see it at the match or on TV that shows a slow mo and freeze frame that makes deciding much easier. I'm no ref or linesman but I can appreciate how hard it is to run the line or ref a game as it's impossible to see everything, hence why we have VAR. As fans, we don't allow them to make mistakes but it's also the money now involved that mistakes made on the pitch shouldn't be left and that the majority are corrected and this is why we have VAR and it's not going away.

Try this and grab a pen and paper and play the 1st video on a big TV (rather than phone) and watch the 25 clips. Write down your answers and then watch the answers after. I can guarantee you won't get 25 out of 25 and you will feel you're guessing quite often as to what you thought you saw. The 2nd video has some dodgy freeze frames but it gives the answer afterwards and again some will have you in disbelief at the ones frozen correctly. Bear in mind this is a basic offside in the comfort of your home and not live with loads of players running everywhere while you're trying to keep a straight line of vision and also trying to see when the precise moment the ball is played!



Without getting into the ins and outs.
You can’t be right about the 50FPS of the camera, although normal broadcast cameras are, the slo-mo being shown so smoothly at 0.25 suggests at least 200FPS, maybe more.
 
Without getting into the ins and outs.
You can’t be right about the 50FPS of the camera, although normal broadcast cameras are, the slo-mo being shown so smoothly at 0.25 suggests at least 200FPS, maybe more.
Aye there are super slow mo replays but those are special cameras and closer to the action. If you watch the video from FIFA it tells you the 12 cameras are 50 times per second and it's also in the Sky article about the World Cup. I was surprised at this as I would have thought they'd use faster cameras. The problem being is the resolution required to see the detail of players means the faster the frames go the smaller the possible image so you'd lose the 4K image quality. That's why super high speed videos you seen on youtube are something like 320 pixels for example. I'm sure in time they will use faster cameras though as the tech is improving as this is a 200FPS example

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How semi-automated offside technology works
The new technology uses 12 dedicated tracking cameras mounted underneath the roof of the stadium to track the ball and up to 29 data points of each individual player, 50 times per second, calculating their exact position on the pitch.

Using the same cameras, FIFA have even brought out an app so players can access their individual player-performance data shortly after each match. I'm not sure if this data is shared so it can be analysed but it does mean players are tracked every single second to get the data

How does it work?
The FIFA Player App will provide the opportunity for each player to access their individual player-performance data shortly after each match. The data collected includes the following:
    • Enhanced football data metrics – calculated using enhanced event data, captured by a team of highly trained FIFA football performance analysts and combined with tracking data. Examples include whether a player made an offer or movement to receive, whether their distribution action broke opposition lines, and the pressure they applied to an opponent in possession of the ball. All metrics are captured against the FIFA Football Language definitions.
    • Physical performance metrics – collected through a highly accurate in-stadium tracking system consisting of multiple cameras located around the pitch for maximum player coverage. Metrics include distance covered at various speed thresholds, number of actions above 25km/h and maximum speed, all displayed on positional heat maps.
    • Enhanced Football Intelligence metrics – created by the FIFA Football Performance Analysis & Insights team by developing a series of algorithms and models that operate live to integrate event and tracking data. The new metrics provide innovative and exciting ways to analyse the game, including the phase of play, line-breaking events, receiving locations and pressure applied to the player in possession of the ball.
This data is synchronised with match footage to enable players to watch all key moments of their own performance in detail, using different camera angles.
 
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Peddled from VAR after forgetting to draw the lines for an offside iirc.

Interested to hear @Voice of fair play @AC Mack and @redandwhiterob on this.


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As a general point mate, as I have said before have a lot less sympathy for mistakes made after the luxury of replays.

My main point with refs are in our games where certain fans despite all known evidence fail to appreciate how difficult it is to make decisions in real time.

That and the fact some think we always get the rough end of the stick when we just the same as any other club.
 
Well they will be living in the past and it won’t be going anyway as the club owners are all for it

It’s time to make it work with competent people in charge of delivering. The clowns of retired refs were always going to make a mess of this. They did throughout their onfield careers so what would be any different
While I agree that there have been some mistakes made over the years by many/most referees, it is ridiculous to claim that all referees made calamitous errors throughout their onfield careers! You have clearly never refereed a match because if you had, you would have some faint idea of what a difficult job it is. Where do you think your so-called "competent people" are going to come from?

I took a referee's course a few years back and in my first game refereeing at social level in the Masters (ie old blokes) I sent off 5 people, 4 for fighting, and 1 for persistently telling me that every decision I made was wrong! But he had never studied the rules and had never taken charge of 22 blokes running round cheating wherever they possibly could. When I eventually sent him off, he said "You're an effing joke", to which I replied "That may be so, but I'm not laughing and you're still off!" At the end his team mates begged me not to report the sending off because they had an important game next week!

Maybe if the obscenely-overpaid "professionals" playing the game didn't cheat so much ("he felt contact and was entitled to go down"), the referees would have more time to make good decisions.

And we don't need VAR!
 
I took a referee's course a few years back and in my first game refereeing at social level in the Masters (ie old blokes) I sent off 5 people, 4 for fighting, and 1 for persistently telling me that every decision I made was wrong! But he had never studied the rules and had never taken charge of 22 blokes running round cheating wherever they possibly could. When I eventually sent him off, he said "You're an effing joke", to which I replied "That may be so, but I'm not laughing and you're still off!" At the end his team mates begged me not to report the sending off because they had an important game next week!
That's part of the problem as loads may think they know the rules yet the reality is they don't. I don't know all the rules but I know a few now as I've lost count at the amount of times I've had to hoy up links to rules on here to show what the rule actually is or explain why I understand a decision was made.

The old system used to be better. Clear daylight, obvious offside. When you start looking at lines and sections of arms/legs/earholes..... you're gunna end up making mistakes.

VAR is a good thing, the problem is too often it's being used incorrectly.

Bit of a shame he's lost his job mind but it was a poor error.
Clear daylight has never been a rule in the book as such but you're not the only person to think that. It was as late as 1990 when they brought it in to be level.


Onside if you are behind the ball (adopted in 1863)
Onside if you are behind the third to last defender (adopted in 1866)
Onside if you are behind the second to last defender (adopted in 1925)
Onside if you are level with the second to last defender (adopted in 1990)


The closest thing to the daylight thing is one way a linesman tries to determine if it was offside. If there was daylight between players a fraction of a second after the ball is 1st touched (some incorrectly think it's when it leaves the player's foot) then he'd give offside. If there's no gap he just lets it go on but there's a couple problems with that. Players aren't always running so a gap isn't there within a fraction of a second and linesman cannot always see the ball being kicked along with all the players running in various ways across the width of the pitch so they guess using experience. Most they will get right but some they will get wrong and sometimes by an obvious distance to those watching on TV replays.
 
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Why does it have to be refs doing it? Two totally different skill sets. Its like expecting a bricklayer to be a good plumber just cos they're in the building lark.
In cricket they get the ppl responsible for the cameras to do all the work and the 3rd umpire just feedbacks what they are seeing, should be doing the same in football
 
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