Celestial forces are at work in twisted directions this year.
No, I’m not talking about mercury retrograde.
I’m not talking about the full moon that makes you howl.
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I’m talking about the World Cup being held in the winter, starting on November 20.
The real one crowned a world champion
World football tournament. World football tournament. The World Cup is more important to more people around the world than any other sporting event. The World Cup, unlike American sports, actually crowns a world champion.
The World Cup is always held in our summer, when the national season is over and the players have had time to rest.
This time it was a huge nonsense, with money chipping away at its heart. Qatar was chosen as the host country because, I’m sure you can get there from here.
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It’s not as if FIFA, the sport’s governing body, had often had a spotless reputation. For example, it seems disinterested in some of the country’s more controversial laws.
Why, one The Qatari World Cup Ambassador recently mused that homosexuality – illegal in Qatar – represents “hurt in the mind.”
And journalists from Denmark and the United States been harassed for what appears to be normal operation, like taking pictures in public places.
But people will still watch. Yes, most people.
However, for many people, the World Cup is their only regular contact with football. (Can I still call it football?)
They participate in the entire month-long event. They choose their favorite country and player, even if their country doesn’t qualify. (Oops, Italy. You play such boring football.)
No VAR-y Good?
However, this will be the World Cup where technology has the potential to become a (even more) annoying, frustrating and ultimately specter dominating. Despite everything, as often happens with technology, is adorned with good intentions.
It’s not just players that are being evaluated, taught, ordered, and even selected, according to some scrutinized data show. Those are some of the most important decisions that will be in the hands of technology. Or rather, the human interpretation of what technology serves.
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Penalty or no penalty? Goal or no goal? Or, as it is more commonly said by dedicated football fans, life or death.
Essential technological innovation that will become the object of love or hate for many is known as VAR. Video Assistant Referee. It made its World Cup debut in 2018, when the event was held in Russia.
Now, however, the presence of VAR in club football has become pervasive, invasive and, for many, positively offensive.
If you’re new to the technology, it transmits images of the game to the so-called Video Assistant Referees, sitting in a closed room with friends, but no beer.
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The VAR umpire looks at whether there is anything unfortunate that the on-field umpire may have missed. The technology also uses smart lines to analyze if a player is offside.
At any time, the VAR umpire can ask the on-field referee to stop the game, run to the monitor near the touchline, and watch a specific match in extreme slow motion from a number of different angles.
This is the problem. When you watch something in super slow motion — especially one person kicking another — it looks much more dramatic and harsh than in real life, when a player is lightly touched, but still rolling in the pain of performing.
Diktat despair of data
We are used to somewhat similar things in American sports. All (the important ones) now allow the coach to challenge calls made on the field by referencing video evidence.
However, the problem with VAR — and many in the business might say it’s all data — is the pretense of objectivity.
Technology positively affects referee behavior. If the video referee asks the on-field umpire to review a play, the second referee knows he will overturn his decision.
Hey, look at the data. Don’t you think there could be a bit of handball in there?
What is never relayed, however, is the actual conversation with the referee — unlike in sports like cricket and rugby. Instead, the referee stares at the screen and makes his decision with hand signals, which can often provoke many fans to give their own hand signals.
Is he really standing? Or is someone acting here?
Television viewers can then see what the video referees watched. Even then, they still resent some ludicrous interpretations of objective evidence.
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Oh, and about those offside lines. FIFA announced it will use “semi-automatic offside” technology to help them [referees] make offside decisions faster, more accurate and more reproducible on the biggest stage.”
Justice by (kind of) robot. We should all be prepared for it.
It’s a good thing. Or is it?
I’m being too negative, I know. I care too much about football, I know. I also know that VAR allows real injustices to happen — for my team, of course — often reversed.
This is another positive technology. The semi-automatic offside technology will have a sensor in the center of the ball, to give a more accurate idea of when the ball was kicked when offside. (If you don’t know or don’t care, the offside rule only applies when the ball is kicked. If an offensive player has only one opposing player standing in front of him at the time, then that offensive player is in front of him. will be offside.)
VAR is a rare attempt for technology to bring justice. Or a little more fair. It’s just that it didn’t always work that way and many trainers are now decrying the way it’s used.
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Why, the famous Italian coach Antonio Conte recent statement he did not “see the honesty” in a VAR decision against his team. Famous German coach Jurgen Klopp once charged The video referee “hides behind” his partner on the field.
I know I shouldn’t be scared. I’m used to VAR already. I know I should be grateful that technology is so smart.
But there is repression at its heart.
Many players won’t even be able to properly celebrate when they score, as they are still waiting for VAR to confirm the goal will be upheld. Fans will scream, just because their screams are probably in vain as technology delivers nana-nana-na.
Some human spontaneity is lost, giving way to the hoped for accuracy. (Does that remind you of work?)
Somehow, I’ve always preferred to hate referrers rather than curse a machine.
But then I stopped and looked at it a little more. I can still hate the referrer operating the machine. And there is a bonus. I can also hate the referee, who then stares at the screen and makes the wrong decision.
And anyway, repressed emotions will surely be the signature symbol of this World Cup, right?
more technically incorrect
