Mid Round of 16 update

The games

First six round of 16 matches are over and all everyone is talking about id two missed calls. One in the Germany – England game which prevented England from leveling the game after being down2:0 a minute or so earlier – clearly the whole ball crossed the whole goal line and a 2:2 game is very different from a 2:1 game. The second was a clear offside goal which gave Argentina a 1:0 lead over Mexico. Many people will call for video replay as the solution for this; I hope that this doesn't become the new standard. I think that the IFAB should mandate the 5 referees system (one center, 2 linesmen and 2 goal line referees) this will surly solve problems like the England goal, reduce dives, deal with hand balls in the box as well as other near goal incidents (more about this below).

So far the only group winner not to advance to the quarter-finals is the USA, so now 2 of my 5 teams are out and one still has to play round of 16 game. However, my top two remaining teams will face each other in the quarter-finals. The US – Ghana games was a close one, I thought that Ghana was better in the first half; the US controlled the second half, but suffered from lack of finishing ability. Combine this with early (game and extra time) defensive lapses and you end-up losing a game you could have won. What made the loss even harder was getting to the Royal Bafokeng Stadium; it is a fairly new (1999), relatively small stadium (under 45K), not in a heavily populated area (Phokeng about 15 km from Rustenburg). Coming from Pretoria, the traffic jam started 80km east of Rustenburg (almost 100km from the Stadium) – we barely made it to the stadium in time.

This is a game for which we didn't have advanced tickets (it was "supposed to be" England's round of 16 game) so there were a great deal of extra tickets. We choose to split our group and Lior and I ended with great seats, at half time we noticed that Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger were in the box almost behind us (about 10m away). We were seating next to a group of younger US fans and when they started chanting his name he stood up and waived at them. Of course, both Lior and I forgot our cameras, but I did find this picture on the web (this might very well be him waving at us). Katie Couric which was also in the VIP box with them, come at half time to talk to us and actually spent a good 10 min talking about the game and asking the younger fans (who were shirtless) how they are handling the cold. I would rather have a win, but this is a nice memory to add to the mental scrap book.

Last night we went to the Argentina – Mexico game in Soccer city. The game was very entertaining and having the emotions out of the game does give you a different perspective on the game. Unlike the night before, getting to the parking was very easy and since we had advance tickets (I got them in May of last year) all four of us were seating together. On the down side, FIFA selling 5^th tier tickets as category 1 seems wrong (position wise on the field, the location was very good). The distance from the park and walk to the stadium was about 30+ min of brisk walk, however along the route were people selling everything from earplugs to vuvuzelas to pins, gloves and the traditional items for a game such as scarves and hats.

Tonight we got to see Brazil beat Chile, our seats were at mid-field, when we saw we had row B, in the upper deck we got very excited – once we got into our section we were told that the top row is "A" L. The game itself was a great deal of fun and the party with the Brazilian fans afterwards was even better. Once more it become clear that the vuvuzelas are vuvuZeval (Zeval = Garbage). No one could hear the fans celebrating until after the game was over and all the "garbage" producers left – the singing, the chanting, the cheering was the best atmosphere we have seen so far.

Video Review vs. 5 Ref System

Given the great success of the 5 Ref System (5RS) experiment in the Europa League it is a great shame that FIFA choose not to implement it in the World Cup, give credit to Michel Platini for trying to get it implemented in this WC. As I stated above the 5RS, can resolve a great deal more than just goal/no goal calls and all these are done in real time without stoppage in play. A 5RS is easy to implement, not costly, and can be used at all levels.

Video review (VR): if we use the NHL approach of only reviewing goals the benefit it will provide a great deal less than the 5RS. The costs will be higher and the game will suffer delays which could have impact on both playing time and quality. If we decide to review all "high impact" calls we will have to deal with half a dozen or so close calls in the area, about the same number of offside calls, add corner vs. goal kick, a few dive/no dive calls, and potential cards incidents and most games will see 20 review stoppages. When was the last time a review in any sporting event lasted for under 30 seconds? An average review will probably take at least a minute. Can you see the game handling 20 minutes of dead time? Getting to the 90^th minute will become next to meaningless.

Some claim that we can do VR only for obvious cases. Two problems: Where do you draw the line? How do you justify not overturning non-obvious cases in which the ref made the wrong call, but require looking at a second or third angle? These "non-obvious" are just as wrong, have as much impact and can be corrected using the same technology as the one used to correct the "obvious" cases. On the other hand if you review everything, how long will the game last? What will all the interruptions do to the game?

Another item to consider is that many of the calls in the game are "in the opinion of the referee". How is this going to impact VR? Is the Center Referee going to walk to a TV monitor anytime there is a question? Is the booth official going to override the referee's opinion? E.g. not all cases of a ball and hand touching each other are "hand ball". Some are fairly clear one way or the other, but some are such that different people will make different call and both will be within the laws of the game how are such cases going to be handled?

Are we going to prescribe even more to the referees as to how to make calls? This is happening with the 4Ds prescriptions for DOGSO and the result is that referees that are following the 4Ds are making worse decisions (from the sprint of the game point of view) compared with referees that are following the simple view of DOGSO (Deny an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity); see A perfect DOGSO for one such example.