La Liga 2021/22

[Neeraj]

It's like one of those fables. Two teams were made from the same stone but destined to be opposites, yin and yan. Madrid are like the opposite of Barca in terms of mentality. No matter what the score is, they have the mental fortitude to crush the opposition into submission, even if their team has been playing like shit. We, even with much, much stronger players, capitulate at the slightest hint of distress.

How something as intangible as 'mental toughness' (let's face it, not only is that an amorphous concept, but mental toughness of a TEAM, what does that even mean really?) can play such a HUGE role in top level sport. Fascinating.

 

[mc_lovin]

People get overboard with their "mentality".

Check out Reals last season. Or the last three decades. We are fine.

 

[Horatio]

People get overboard with their "mentality".

Check out Reals last season. Or the last three decades. We are fine.

Yeah, I am also putting things into perspective but the issue with the fans is a bit disturbing.

 

[Laplacian]

People get overboard with their "mentality".

Check out Reals last season. Or the last three decades. We are fine.

Yeah, it's not just about mentality. It's about quality.

 

[mc_lovin]

The difference is they put young, hard-working and pacy players next to Benzema, Modric and co while Barto went for Griezmann, Coutinho and Lenglet That obviously hurts.

And I think this season has shown that Busquets, Alba and Pique look much better with pace upfront and physicality at the back (Araujo). They are obviously still far from perfect, but you wonder what could have been if we were competent 5 years ago. I don't think any one of them would have the reputation they have right now.

 

[Porque]

The differance is also that Camavinga can make a glaring yellow card foul to stop an attack and the ref will overlook it because he doesn't want to give a first half sending off against Madrid. Or that they can get 3 penalties in a game.

Madrid are deserved leaders (though the differance should be 3-6 points), but it helps that you know these decisions will go your way.

 

[ajnotkeith]

The differance is also that Camavinga can make a glaring yellow card foul to stop an attack and the ref will overlook it because he doesn't want to give a first half sending off against Madrid. Or that they can get 3 penalties in a game.

Madrid are deserved leaders (though the differance should be 3-6 points), but it helps that you know these decisions will go your way.

They also had a penalty not given and a regular goal disallowed. Ref was poor for both sides.

 

[Laplacian]

The differance is also that Camavinga can make a glaring yellow card foul to stop an attack and the ref will overlook it because he doesn't want to give a first half sending off against Madrid. Or that they can get 3 penalties in a game.

Madrid are deserved leaders (though the differance should be 3-6 points), but it helps that you know these decisions will go your way.

Referee decisions are always inconsistent, even with us. Referees have given us favorable decisions as well. Manchester United still gets quite a bit of leniency with referees and they're still shit. You don't win a league title based off referee lenience, that's just a myth perpetuated by frustrated fans all over Europe. What wins league titles is consistent quality relative to the rest of the league. Simple as.

 

[Porque]

Referee decisions are always inconsistent, even with us. Referees have given us favorable decisions as well. Manchester United still gets quite a bit of leniency with referees and they're still shit. You don't win a league title based off referee lenience, that's just a myth perpetuated by frustrated fans all over Europe. What wins league titles is consistent quality relative to the rest of the league. Simple as.

We do too. And your right on the whole. It is just the timing of these since the 4-0 win have dampened any hope of a title race.

With VAR there shouldnt really be inconsistencies.

 

[Morten]

We do too. And your right on the whole. It is just the timing of these since the 4-0 win have dampened any hope of a title race.

With VAR there shouldnt really be inconsistencies.

Doesn't matter when the ref is blind, or is ignoring it for some reason.

Don't agree btw, some of the offside-calls are so tight you can't really say they are right or wrong.

 

[Porque]

Doesn't matter when the ref is blind, or is ignoring it for some reason.

Don't agree btw, some of the offside-calls are so tight you can't really say they are right or wrong.

The offsides in LaLiga are one of the few the few things they get right imo. Let the play go on and leave the VAR to determine. Some of the iffy ones I tested in editing software and they were correct calls.

It's the blind eye to fouls, and the deciding on when to apply the handball rules or when to decide a foul in the box is a foul and when not that are bigger issues imo.

 

[El Gato]

The offsides in LaLiga are one of the few the few things they get right imo. Let the play go on and leave the VAR to determine. Some of the iffy ones I tested in editing software and they were correct calls.

It's the blind eye to fouls, and the deciding on when to apply the handball rules or when to decide a foul in the box is a foul and when not that are bigger issues imo.

What editing software though
How can you reasonably say that what you have at your disposal is able to discern the tightest of decisions?

 

[Porque]

What editing software though
How can you reasonably say that what you have at your disposal is able to discern the tightest of decisions?

Photo editing. There was 2 calls last year I thought were onside. I took the VAR images and run the line from the field lines and they were correct. Not infallible but made me understand that their method for offsides devoid human interpretation.

I don't think the software they use is incorrect (let's ignore the wrong image used for an offside earlier this season). Just the human interpretation of fouls (disallowed Copa goal against Madrid for example where there was no foul) and handballs.

Then there are obvious fouls which are missed live by the referee (Courtois on the 2nd Sevilla goal, Camavinga 2nd yellow for example) which VAR could/should be used to discipline on evaluation like in Rugby.

 

[El Gato]

Photo editing. There was 2 calls last year I thought were onside. I took the VAR images and run the line from the field lines and they were correct. Not infallible but made me understand that their method for offsides devoid human interpretation.

I don't think the software they use is incorrect (let's ignore the wrong image used for an offside earlier this season). Just the human interpretation of fouls (disallowed Copa goal against Madrid for example where there was no foul) and handballs.

Then there are obvious fouls which are missed live by the referee (Courtois on the 2nd Sevilla goal, Camavinga 2nd yellow for example) which VAR could/should be used to discipline on evaluation like in Rugby.

Depending what you looked on, maybe you were able to tell
But this is no way eliminates the problem of calling tight offsides where camera simply is not good enough to detect the differences in distance if you assume the decision is to be binary and it's just a matter of being able to see it
And the more time passes the more it becomes questionable whether it's worth to call the tightest of offsides against the attacking player

Hence the original statement that "with VAR there shouldn't be inconsistencies" is debatable
But may be possible to just write the law in an unambiguous way

Fouls are a whole different ball game as they're dependent on game stoppage.
Can't always pull game back to an event that may have occurred 30-60-90 seconds ago.
But may be that they will experiment with it as time passes and there are enough cases where these decisions sufficiently impact the game to the point it cannot be ignored anymore

 

[Porque]

Depending what you looked on, maybe you were able to tell
But this is no way eliminates the problem of calling tight offsides where camera simply is not good enough to detect the differences in distance if you assume the decision is to be binary and it's just a matter of being able to see it
And the more time passes the more it becomes questionable whether it's worth to call the tightest of offsides against the attacking player

Hence the original statement that "with VAR there shouldn't be inconsistencies" is debatable
But may be possible to just write the law in an unambiguous way

Fouls are a whole different ball game as they're dependent on game stoppage.
Can't always pull game back to an event that may have occurred 30-60-90 seconds ago.
But may be that they will experiment with it as time passes and there are enough cases where these decisions sufficiently impact the game to the point it cannot be ignored anymore

This I agree with. From my understanding, the calls for offside are mathematically based like Hawkeye in Tennis. And if I'm wrong, the technology should be at the stage to be so.

When I was growing up, the interpretation of the offside was always that when it is too close to call it should benefit the attacking side. The current VAR is the opposite of that and as you say should probably be amended to a way to benefit the attacking side.

Regarding fouls, perhaps not to call the game back (unless it is a penalty foul), but simply to inform the ref "Yellow to XXX player".

It is clear so far, with how they retracted on what is a penalty handball and not, that they want the VAR, but haven't quite worked out how much they are willing to let it influence the game.