Group A: FRA-NOR-KOR-NIG

[imp]

The one situation where I've been pretty impressed with VAR is offsides. It seems to work well there - as it's hard for a human to measure in real time, easy to verify in replays. I'd get rid of VAR except for offsides and potential violent conduct missed by the ref tbh and let the ref get on with their job for everything else.

Beg to throughly disagree. First, it's the cause of these accursed delayed offside flags, just in case there's a goal that it turns out wasn't offside even through everyone sitting at the right angle can see a given player was a yard off (I'm hoping this is only in trial at the WWC, and will be abolished right after the tournament ends). Second, we're seeing goals disallowed on matters of inches measured by computers - cf. the cracking French goal disallowed during the opening game. This is totally against the spirit of the offside law, which exists, remember, to stop players from gaining an advantage by goal-hanging. So a brilliant goal is celebrated by fans and players, then because the VAR's computer sees that the player's knee-cap was an inch in front of her mark, the goal gets cancelled. There's no defence for this - it's shit for fans, players and the game as a whole.

You could make the offside law that there must be clear space between the attacker and the second to last defender. And use Janik's one-appeal-per-team-per-match rule, as per hockey. I don't mind goals that are "a fraction offside". It's lousy to disallow excellent play on the basis of tiny physical infringements which are not caused by players seeking to gain an advantage, they're just trying to time their runs against an arbitrary law that penalises attacking play. The current offside law, now with the help of the VAR, is weighted way too much to the defender's advantage.

Stop this micro-refereeing bollocks now. It's a fucking abomination.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

yeah, i mean the best solution is everyone calms the fuck down about the possibility of bad refereeing decisions but that's not going to happen any time soon