I can see why many people (especially English) are interested in cameras in and around the goals in soccer (aka the real football). It would certainly help a lot of referees out, earn more money to one club/country or player and make soccer more fair.
But soccer isn’t fair. Soccer isn’t about correct decisions, if it were we’d see a lot more penalty kicks in every match. Soccer is about human decisions and human feelings. If you want fairness and video technology, go play FIFA Soccer 2010 or American Football instead.
Soccer is a drama based on human feelings and quick decisions. That is the charm of watching soccer. If a team get their goal falsely overruled it changes the game instantly. Giving it even more excitement, thrill and tensions. If the game has to be stopped because someone claims the ball was in the net, we’ll have these tedious American circumstances where the game is stopped to check something on a screen. This ruins the players concentration, the flow of the game and the overall viewing experience.
I have a better idea. In profesional handball the ball has a small chip that activates a vibrator in the referee’s wrist watch, when the ball has passed the goal line. It’s similar to the technology in the assistant referee’s flag in soccer. They activate a vibrator around the referee’s arm when they push a button on the flag.
I think that solution is much better than an extra referee behind each goal or video technology mounted on goals.
I’m sure Mexico are a bit upset about Tevez’s off-side goal too. This is just as bad as not seeing a goal. Would you want the referee to stop the game everytime that happens too?
(I’m a soccer referee and assistant referee myself, so I know a little about soccer)
What a load of crap. Soccer is about humans and emotion blah blah. Soccer is a sport, a competition and you set up a false dichotomy between the game as it is now and NFL. There are plenty of other examples of excellent use of technology – in tennis, rugby league and many other sports, all of which can claim the same human emotion blah blah that you claim exists only with soccer. Move along, get with the times and use technology. And while you’re at it, review the matches afterwards and rub all divers out for the next 2 matches. Currently soccer games are decided by bad refereeing decisions and cheating players. That’s not a sport, that’s a farce.
I will explain what is wrong with the assumptions and conclusion in this article, first by pressing two general points concerning the use of video technology and then answering the specific questions raised in the article;
G E N E R A L P O I N T S
1: The referee is not part of the game
The author correctly notices that “Soccer is a drama based on human feelings and quick decisions.” but then makes the mistake that this should pertain to those of the referee too. The game is a set of rules that is played by 22 man in the field. The referee is not part of the game, he is enforcing the rules. His feelings and quick decisions may be interesting in their own right, but they should not part of the soccer game, or at least to an extend that is as limited as possible. When a player makes a mistake, that’s part of the game, and the negative and positive emotions that this will bring about in the teams and their fans are thrilling. However, when a referee makes a mistake, it’s never enjoyable. Sure the team that wrongly get a goal awarded or spared will be happy for a moment, and maybe even years if the game is eventually won because of it. But the glory of a game that is truly won, and not because of some referee’s error will forever be lost.
2: Using video technology does NOT mean that the game has to be stopped constantly
Probably the most common argument against the use of video technology is that the flow of the game will be hampered. This assumption is false. Apperently it is assumed that the only way to use video technology is to stop the whole game, have someone rewind a tape, look at it, and give a decision. This argument is bad for two main reasons: video decisions can be very fast and the game, as it stands, has much deadtime around difficult decisions that would in fact be reduced with the use of video technology. Decisions can be made on the fly and don’t even need intant replay if a couple of assistent referees is watching through camera’s from different angles and press a button to indicate an perceived foul, offside, goals etc. No rewinding needed. The instant decision should be send to the referees headset, or vibrating armband for my part, and used in his final decision. The number of referees can be reduced and the accuracy increased if a system was used that with the first button press replays the last 5 seconds at half speed, and then the decision is made. This would create a downtime of at most 10 seconds. This time would easily be made up by the disappearance one of the worst aspects of modern soccer: the dive and the excessive whining even if a real foul is commited. The dive as a tactic only works because there is no instant replay. And even if a real foul is commited, a player has to pretend it is worse than it really is lest he may miss out on the compensation he deserves. The benifits of reducing the number of wrongly declined goals due to misperceived offsides need not even be mentioned, i assume. In this case, the argument of not stopping the game complete evaporates because the flow of the game of soccer stops anyway if the ball disappears in the goal! Using five seconds of this downtime to routinely review whether an offside occured or not is therefore completely benificial.
S P E C I F I C P O I N T S
1. “I think that solution is much better than an extra referee behind each goal or video technology mounted on goals.”
I don’t see why that is. What is your concern, the extra salary? Sure, if your chip technlogy works flawlessly i’m happy with that. I just don’t see what’s wrong with having an extra assistants looking at a screen that films the goal as in illusion number 4 in the article, if that means obvious goals actually get noted. (Mote that only one extra referee is need if screens are used instead of having one person standing near each goal, because a goal can only be made at one goal at time
2. “To the English who feel cheated by the referees I can only agree. The assistant referee should have seen the goal!”
This is exactly the point of utilizing modern technology! Mistakes will always be made, the point is to reduce the number of mistake to acceptable level (e.g. at least 25 times less frequent than it is now) in an acceptable amount of time. Modern technology is at a level now that i think the level of 1/25 can easily be atained with 5 seconds (that will be gained back by removing whine time from the game!) and two video assistant video referees (using the footage that is already made at larger games). This is not just a guess, everybody knows how easy it is to better professional referees with the luxury of instant replay and hindsight!
3 “I’m sure Mexico are a bit upset about Tevez’s off-side goal too. This is just as bad as not seeing a goal. Would you want the referee to stop the game everytime that happens too?”
Ehm, the particular game you are talking about was in fact stopped for at least 5 minutes with the referee and the assistant referee trying to remember what they thought had happened while millions of people at home had already seen in a five second replay that there was indeed an offside commited!