PR(ay)ing The Gay Away

Can you explain to a soccer newbie why you don't like penalty kicks and what the deal is with video assistant refereeing?

So there’s a lot that goes into both of those things, but it all sums up to the idea that VAR, by creating the possibility for instant replay, has highlighted some severe shortcomings in the rules of the game.  By electing to have a VAR official who operates the way they have in the 2019 WC– enforcing the law to the letter, rather the intent– the sport has undermined one of the greatest aspects of soccer over other sports: that it never stops.

Anyways.  So:

1. The VAR thing

The use of VAR was actually something that was lobbied for heavily, along with goal line technology, for a long time.  Things like Maradona’s hand of god are prime examples of why– an egregious violation of the rules.  However, the way it’s been implemented was with clear instruction to the officials (VAR and center ref) to enforce rules strictly.  That meant that offsides, which has historically always been enforced on the basis of the torso– if at the time the ball is played forward the attacking player’s torso is noticeably ahead of the last defender’s torso, which indicates a clear advantage on the attacking player’s part, then they’re offisides– to literally anything.  Cameroon had a goal disallowed because a player’s back foot was kicked back in the motion of running away from goal:

This didn’t create an advantage to Cameroon, but the goal was still disallowed.  The same thing happened to Ellen White against the US in the semifinals.  An absurdly strict enforcement that negates the intent of the rule changed the entire course of the game.  

VAR has been used, I believe, in some of the European club leagues for a few years now and has never been used so strictly, or so frequently.  The 2019 WC saw more than thirty VAR decisions, I think, and almost all of them overruled what the center ref had initially called, and almost all of them were on absurdly, cruelly strict interpretations of rules that have consistently been enforced on the concept of advantage more than anything else.

Now, that’s not to say that the way VAR was used was exclusively the fault of the people using it.  They were told to enforce the rules, and they did.  The problems is that the rules, even the most recent rule changes that went into effect in June 2019*, were designed for a game without VAR.  Which leads us to…

2. The rules thing

There were a bunch of penalty kicks based on handballs in this tournament.  The rule changes in June said that a handball was any contact between the arm and ball when the arm was “outside the natural silhouette” of the body or some such.  Effectively, the way it’s been enforced, if your arm isn’t glued to your side and the ball hits it– even if it’s ball-to-hand instead of hand-to-ball– then that’s a handball.  Scotland had a penalty kick called against them because a defender who was off-balance had an arm out for balance (I can’t find a picture right now) and the attacking player’s cross clipped her forearm.  Not even the other team was calling for a handball because the contact was skimming at best, and didn’t even change the trajectory of the ball.  The ref didn’t call it.  But VAR called the ref over to watch the replay and enforce the letter of the law.  PK for England.

Similarly, a whole lot of goalkeepers were carded for encroachment on penalty kicks.  The rules say that on a PK, the keeper has to keep at least one foot on the goal line until the shooter kicks the ball.  If they come off early, it’s encroaching on the shooter’s angle and makes it easier to block the shot.  It makes sense, in concept, to prevent keepers from granting themselves an advantage by coming forward off the line and cutting down the angle before the ball’s touched.  But the way it was enforced was that things like this:

were counted as encroachment.  Even more ridiculously, things like France’s PK against Nigeria, where Renard hit the post even without the keeper touching it, were retaken because of “encroachment” from the keeper:

You can almost make an argument that she was off the line in that one, but even so: the penalty was missed, not saved.  The ref didn’t call it back, the VAR did.

VAR is highlighting the flaws with the way the rules are written.  Things like offsides and encroachment especially were never intended to be measuring by centimeters, but to prevent unfair advantages.  The offsides goals called back were matters of inches, with no clear advantage to the attackers; the keeper encroachment calls were on minuscule movements that granted no advantage to the keeper.   The rules need to be updated to account for the attention to detail that VAR allows: specifically, the rules need to be rewritten to put the focus on advantage as opposed to strict measurements.

3. The PK thing

Penalty kicks are punishment.  Their sole purpose is to give a scoring opportunity in which the advantage leans towards the attacking team, to make up for an unfair advantage granted to the defending team by way of committing a foul.  This is a good idea, and there are situations where a penalty kick are clearly warranted: an Australian player, the last defender, pulled down an attacking forward and denied a goalscoring opportunity; a Dutch defender came in on Alex Morgan with a high boot and studs up and clipped her in the shoulder.  Those are good penalties.

This maybe a controversial opinion of mine, but I think that handballs need to be taken off the PK roster.  Grant a direct kick from the point of the handball or any other technical foul– it’s clearly doable within the rules; look no further than the one given against Cameroon from three yards off the goal line– but save penalty kicks for dangerous fouls.  Studs up, high boot, thrown elbows– all of those things should be penalties when committed by the defending team in the box.  But not handballs, and especially not with how they’ve been defining handball recently.  It encourages attacking players to actively try and force a handball to get a penalty, and additionally, like.  Let’s be clear.  This idea of “outside of the silhouette” and “unnatural position” are garbage definitions.  If you’re moving around and playing  a sport, your arm is never going to be sitting glued against your body.  The most truly unnatural position for the arm when defending is to have your hands locked behind your back, which is what this is pushing defenders towards– no balance, no counterweight for turns, no momentum, nothing.  

Anyways.  Penalties are an important part of the game designed to keep defenses honest.  But they should be the exception, not the rule. That the US got two penalties against Spain in one match is outrageous, even before accounting for the fact that the second one was the softest of PK calls I’ve ever seen.  Penalties should be uncommon and reserved for dangerous fouls, but the way the rules have been written– stupidly– and the way VAR has been used to enforce the rules– idiotically– have completely undermined the whole intent of the rules and of penalties.

4. Anyways

tl;dr version is that as it’s been used currently, VAR has both ruined the whole run of play of soccer and highlighted the glaring shortcomings of the way the laws of the game are written, and the most obvious demonstration of that is the rate at which VAR is granting penalty kicks.  VAR is important and necessary– I fully believe that goals should always be confirmed by VAR, as well as any action that could result in a direct red card– but it needs to be used to implement what the rules mean, not to pull back goals because someone had a half an arm offsides when the rest of their body was even with the defensive line.

Also, I mean.  To actually answer your initial questions about penalties: I was a goalkeeper for like twelve years.  I fucking hate them on that basis alone.

*That FIFA implemented rule changes barely a week before the 2019 World Cup started is a whole other level of blatant misogyny and sexism that we won’t get into here.