For those of you that are uninitiated to the world of competitive futbol, or “footy” as the cool kids say, VAR stands for Video Assistant Referee; it’s a means to hopefully correct BLATANT and OBVIOUS mistakes made by our more error-prone human referees. A questionable call made in the match goes to VAR to check if an egregious mistake has been made, and the idea is to make sure the outcome of the game doesn’t suffer because of it. It’s a rather recent invention written into the Laws of the Game by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in 2018 (thank you, Wikipedia). After today’s Liverpool-Everton match, it’s clear that it should have promptly been killed off hours after it was enacted.
Let’s start with the first ridiculous infraction that this supposed “supercomputer” royally messed up. Not even five minutes into the match, Liverpool already leading 1-0, a lovely ball gets played to the back post, and the world’s best defender, Virgil Van Dijk attempts to play that beauty into the back of the net. The bumbling buffoon in goal for Everton, Jordan Pickford, promptly makes an excessive challenge on said world’s best defender and puts him into a bodybag.
Again, for those not initiated in the ways of the footy, that’s putting your opponent in obvious danger with a reckless challenge and that gets you a quick red card, no questions asked. But does Mr. Pickford see that red blazoned piece of plastic come out of referee Michael Oliver’s pocket? No. Offside was called on the play, so there’s no room for a penalty. However, even still, a penalty doesn’t necessarily need to be called in order for a red to be brandished here. It’s still a reckless challenge, and therefore, Mr. Oliver could still give the red without also calling for a penalty shot due to the offside.
Surely this is a BLATANT and OBVIOUS mistake by Mr. Oliver. No sweat, humans fuck up, it’s the very nature of our way. Luckily, we have a “supersystem” to correct this mistake.
Oh, what’s that you say?
Oh, VAR isn’t even going to check for a red card, and instead is only checking for a penalty, which is negated by the fact that a player was offside?
THEN WHY THE HELL DOES THIS DAMN SYSTEM EVEN EXIST?!
For the love of everything holy, that’s what the hell this thing is supposed to be there for! Protect the players one time for me, VAR. Just because you’re a machine, incapable of feeling human emotion, it doesn’t give you a pass to allow human lives to be put in jeopardy, which is exactly what happened to big Virgil, here. Now, Virgil is lost for the remainder of the game (and I pray nothing more than that) while Everton plays with all of their men still on the pitch. What a disgrace.
As if that’s not enough, after Liverpool and Everton play a razor-thin match the rest of the way, the red card mojo swings back towards Liverpool after Everton’s Richarlison went in super heavy on new Liverpool signing, Thiago. Richarlison is lucky he didn’t break the poor lad’s leg.
This time, Mr. Oliver takes the decisive action that was necessary and gets the Brazilian out of the game. Well deserved and well officiated.
Then, just moments later, Liverpool snatched a late winner on Jordan Henderson’s strike that dribbled past, you guessed it, that Toffee-buffoon, Pickford.
All is now right in the world! Karma has reset itself, and the correct result has been reached with Liverpool taking all three points in victory.
Wait, do you hear that? IT’S VAR’S MUSIC!
Yup, that dirty rat-technology, VAR, is back at it again! Sadio Mane is ruled offside by the margin of…an invisible thread? Air particles? I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know how you can look at the picture that VAR presents and tell me the man is offsides. This isn’t what the damn system is supposed to be used for! It’s not clear! It’s not obvious! The only thing that is both of those things is the fact that it’s downright criminal to disallow a game-winning goal for something so minuscule.
Have you ever watched a scary movie where the antagonist is some sort of spawn of Satan? Does the protagonist simply let that creature live for a little while and say, “Well I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like too big a deal. Let’s just see where this goes!”?
No!
They take out a flamethrower, a bazooka, or whatever other ridiculously badass weapon they have lying around, and they blow that shit up!
VAR = Spawn of Satan
Burn that mother down to the ground, Evil Dead-style.
Whatever, I guess. Them’s the breaks. Onward and upward, Liverpool. YNWA.
