tigerfan88

Completely agree. I think that’s why you’re seeing the Wenger rule be tried out. Refs tended to give the tie to the offensive player if the general torso’s were inline. Now that it’s being judged by AI to within an inch people are realizing it’s kind of a dumb rule.

Red cards have never officially had an “intent” element written into the laws. It didn’t matter because refs never gave reds for unintentional coming together. Now VAR is coming and saying “doesn’t matter the context this is technically ‘excessive force’” even if unintentional.

You either need to rein in VAR or redo the rules.

Also having them advise on penalties is absurd. That Portugal penalty was 100% judgment call. It’s been not given 60 times this tournament, but one VAR official decides it’s a penalty and it is? Having them review subjective calls is absurd. Take notes from the NFL, would be like the if they had VAR for holding.

That’s why you don’t make the bullshite penalty call.

Croatia getting VAR fricked

They haven’t called that a penalty all World Cup. Bosnia did worse to Balogun like five times. Just like Balogun’s foul has occurred like five times with no penalty.

All it takes is one rogue VAR ref watching in slow motion and all rationality goes out the window.

lol at them giving this but not giving us a single look last night when they did this to Balogun 5 times and then gave him a red card

Think there’s too much focus on how deep we make it as far as what constitutes success. That’s certainly a big part of it, but the level of performance and style of play we’ve exhibited have already made it a success to some degree. We’ve dominated the three games we played our A team to a level we never have before. 8-1 against stubborn opposition and total game state dominance.

Yes not the best competition possible, but we also didn’t have any utter cakewalks. All three wins against decent wc opposition. Peru beat Turkey and Germany. Bosnia beat Italy to qualify and was only down 1-0 to Switzerland through 80 min until a red card. And we dominated all of them.

We’ll see what the plan is without Balogun. I tend to think that it’s more Pochettino being able to draw up a game plan and develop a tactical system that is more nuanced than “get Pulisic the ball wide and hope he does something.”

Think it’s telling that’s about the extent of Gregg’s tactical nous.

To be fair if you read the article he’s just stating that under the rules an extended suspension is a possibility. There’s no inside information as far as what the result will be.

Also Tim Ream is a fricking legend and anyone who doubted him and his role on the team should go in timeout and rethink their views on life over the next couple of weeks

frick em. Bulletin board material. Poch will get them ready.

Turns out people on the west coast love the USA when patriotism hasn’t been co-opted by the MAGA movement.

Also there’s more Mexican fans in Houston and Dallas and Florida than USA.