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Adapt or die. Various soccer players face the race to conform to the greatest change that this sport has undergone in its history, according to IFAB. It is about video arbitration. An auxiliary tool for referees that has changed the reality of this sport. If his intention was to end the great injustices (see Tassotti's elbow to Luis Enrique, Maradona's goal of God's hand or the phantom goal that was not given to Lampard in the World Cup in South Africa), footballers try to find their weak points to continue to benefit from small deceptions.
“We are a band of cheats in the Spanish league,” José Luis Mendilibar recently pointed out. The Eibar coach, one of the most critical of the VAR, acknowledged that the Spanish footballers are blatantly trying to deceive the referee to seek a penalty. Video refereeing has become the Big Brother of football. See everything that happens in the game. Any image that belongs to the television broadcast reaches the VOR Room to be analyzed. The players, aware of this, have sought to put the referee's 'snitch' on their side. They seek to attract the attention of the VAR with what they know that they are reviewable plays and, in most cases, punishable. In this way, the simulations, which seemed to be in danger of extinction, have mutated into an action that puts braids in trouble; as well as the hands before its new regulations, which has led many attackers to seek to shoot into the arms of their adversary since they have more options to be awarded penalties. And finally, something that has become intrinsic to football: protests. Corner the referee to condition future decisions in the course of the match.
The pools seemed to disappear in the first season with VAR. Of the 17 warnings that were registered in the 2017-2018 campaign (last without video refereeing), it was increased to 7 in 2018-19. That is, 41% less. Last season, the second with VAR, the level of cautions grew to 11 yellows. And in the current campaign there are already 6 and there are still a third of the games to be played.
“The footballer has adapted to VAR much better than the referees”
Iturralde González
What has happened to the simulations? Well, they have mutated. Players have found a new way to get penalties and, although the cards have increased for this reason compared to the first season with VAR, it is very difficult for players to be booked. “Before the simulations were more diaphanous and clear. The forwards did not care that there was no contact and they did not look for it. As there was no VAR, the referees did not have that tool with which it can be shown that it had been thrown. But the footballer, who is smart, has adapted much better to VAR than the referees, now they are looking for contact to provoke the penalty “, points Iturralde González, former international referee and arbitration expert in AS and Cadena SER. And he gives an example for his argument: “For me, the one who whistles at Athletic against Levante. If you look closely, Berenguer is throwing himself to look for the penalty. If the referee whistles and there is contact, the VAR is not going to tell him that there is a clear and manifest error, the key is who has started the contact and who has dumped. There are a lot of plays that have been called penalties for contacts but that are not really penalties. The one looking for contact is the striker. In the field the referee has seen contact and whistles it and in the VAR, as they are very corporatist, they decide to support the decision of their partner when there is contact. “
Mendilibar, in the same press conference that stated that in the Spanish league they are all a “band of cheats, he pointed to these exaggerations of the attackers: “They touch us and it seems they have killed us.” But the problem that the referees now have to punish the simulations is that there is contact. “Arbitrally speaking, when we are on the field of play we have to be absolutely certain that that player has simulated and as a consequence he is worthy of a disciplinary sanction. If you do not have that certainty, it is preferable to abstain because it may have been the target of a penalty. But if you have the certainty, of course, you have to sanction because that is how it is typified in the rules of the game, “replied the international referee. From Cerro Grande to this newspaper last Tuesday at a press conference. He added: “We all thought that the arrival of the VAR had an immediate effect in reducing simulations by the players. Now we find ourselves in a new scenario in which we talk about penalties with light contacts. “
“They use some contacts to fall and stay on the grass while waiting for the VAR to recommend a review to the referee”
Circular CTA
Those penalties with light contacts are one of the challenges of the Refereeing Committee. In the preseason seminar, they highlighted the importance of their referees not falling into this trap of the players, as is stated in a circular from the CTA: “It is observed how the participants in the game, knowing the existence of the VAR, use some contacts to fall and remain on the grass while waiting for the VAR to recommend a review to the referee“And he continues:” During the seminars, they have insisted on the need for a correct evaluation of those “small contacts” that should not be penalized as a penalty, nor should the VAR recommend to the referee the review of the action even if it appreciates them in the check-up. of the images they make of each incident within the area. In short, the recommendation given to the referees is not to sanction these small contacts and the VARs that do not intervene in this type of actions evaluated by the arbitrators. Only in clear and manifest actions should they recommend the review to the referee. “
The CTA, in its last appearance, showed its satisfaction in the performance of its referees in this type of penalties. “We are satisfied with the intervention of the VAR in the area plays. If there is evidence, this season more penalties sanctioned by the referees are being rectified and a little more is being intervened to sanction unmarked penalties,” said Velasco Carballo, president of the CTA .
Iturralde González encourages showing more yellows and points to the Competition Committee as one of the culprits for not doing so: “It is an endemic evil. When there is contact, the Competition Committee removes the yellows. And the referees warn them, but then the committees take away the reason and give it to the players saying that it is not simulation. I am very critical of the Competition Committees because I always say that they know a lot about laws, but they do not know about refereeing and football.. And what about contact? That contact is not enough to jump. Velasco says that you have to be very safe in case you caution and then you see that it is a penalty. So as not to stay with your ass in the air. But maybe it is much better to stay with your ass in the air four times and make the player see that, even if there is contact, you are going to penalize the simulation. “And he encourages the referees to punish those actions:”They are thinking about what the Competition Committee is going to do and they shouldn't care. If the players take it from them, even if they take it from them later, they know that during that game they already have a yellow and if they take another they can send them to the street and leave their team with one less. You can stay 40 minutes on the street to see a second one. That would reaffirm the arbitration work. “
Players are knowing how to take advantage of VAR in certain types of plays. “Without knowing the protocol, players know the weaknesses of the VAR and where they can benefit the most from this system. In the end it is to see who adapts before“, assures Iturralde. And not only in penalties for light contact, but also for the hands. Many players say they do not know the criteria of the hands and think that every hand in the area is a penalty. For this reason, some members Soccer warns that some players are already aiming at the defender's arms to force a VAR check and a possible penalty in favor.
According to the Arbitration Committee, 73 plays of hands have been made and they have been successful in 93%. They did not whistle any penalty per hand other than and they did have five maximum penalties for this reason. (two for having the arm at shoulder height and three for being in an unnatural position). The actions that are sanctioned most times are the hands of the defenders for having them in an unnatural position and occupying a space (the referee whistled 7 from the field and on six other occasions the VAR recommended reviewing a play of this type).
The players are also taking advantage of the absence of the public in the stands to put more pressure on the referees and take advantage of it. A mobbing technique that the CTA has noticed is increasing and that it wants to punish forcefully. “You cannot weaken the figure of the referee,” said Clos Gómez, director of the VAR Project, at the beginning of the season. Therefore, the order was given to get a yellow at least one player who corner the referee to protest. In addition, Braids were ordered to be more severe with the benches and to expel any coach or player who is in the stands and protests excessively.
Although the protests and pressure on the referees are nothing new, as Iturralde explains: “It is a psychological issue that they have studied for a lifetime. When has a referee changed his mind after being protested? They protest to condition your next decision. They do not care about the play you just called, because they already know that if you have called a penalty or red you will keep it, but they try to condition all subsequent decisions. That is mobbing. When the players go to eat the heads of the referees so that they go to see the VAR they do not admonish them. Whenever you have to make VAR decisions they will eat your head. If there were yellows when they were on the monitor watching the play and they went to bother them. They did not want VAR, they have it. What do you have to protest while it is being reviewed? “
Despite the fact that this focus has been placed on this type of action by the players, the Refereeing Committee has presumed in recent seasons to be reducing the sanctions for protests. Of the 266 cards for this reason in the last campaign without VAR, it went to 220 in 2018-19. The last one was reduced again to 218 and this accumulated 120. In a projection of the rhythm of yellows for protesting per game, the figure for this season could be around 183. A figure much lower than that of the previous campaign despite the focus on punishing this type of behavior.