Soccer 2017-2018

What a strike. Entertaining game here between Serbia and the Swiss.

Fifa does need to eventually put an emphasis on stopping the holding/grabbing that defenders get away with in the box on free kicks/corners. Pretty amazing replay of 2 Swiss defenders not even looking for the ball just virtually tackling Serbian attacker while he's trying to get a head to a cross.

Pretty cruel ending for the serbian team, but amazing counter attack by the swiss team.

That was a penalty and it's a joke it wasn't called.

My understanding is that the referee cannot call for the video, it goes the other way around.

There are several refs behind monitors looking at the match (how many exactly I am not sure as I have heard conflicting reports). When there is a call that seems kinda fishy to them or might have been missed, they review the action through all available camera angles. When they decide to review it, I am pretty sure the ref in the game is notified (the tv commentators definitely are). If the video referees (I am not sure if it has to be unanimous or majority or what) estimate the ref' on the pitch blatantly missed a call or made a blatantly wrong call, they ask the ref' to stop the game and check the video. Upon seeing the video, the ref' can decide to go back to the missed call, change the call he made or just do nothing if even after seeing the video he feels he made the right call.

In the specific example of the swiss defenders sandwitching the serbian forward in the box, I am not even sure it got reviewed, but, if it did, the video referees felt the call against the serbian was the right one, or, at the very least, not unreasonable. You have to understand that in the replays we saw on TV we only get to see the end of the action, with all three guys hugging each others and falling, but the VAR people have multiple angles of everything that lead to that situation.

It was pretty clear he was getting mugged by 2 guys in the box. They're obviously pretty inconsistent with calling that type of stuff though, so I'd go so far as to believe they won't even review every one, even though they should. Until they actually just start handing out penalties every time it will continue to happen, though. Part of me wishes they would do that, but there would be a short period of time when it'll be penalties galore.

I'm not slobbing Ronaldo cock I'm fucking pointing out the guys accolades, in the middle of him achieving them.

Yea you did talk about the world cup quite a bit, but didn't really give him any credit for his hat trick and then game winner.

So you highlight my point. And when Argentina lost you gave Messi every excuse.

You hate Ronaldo, I don't. I guess we can just leave it there. But you have already admitted you don't like him, and he just keeps balling. *shrug*

Maybe I'm in the minority, but VAR has been pretty spot on every time they've used it. I damn sure like them getting another look at potential penalty calls or reviewing a penalty call that should be overturned. Offside as well. Get it right.

Must of missed his performance against Spain. It was the stuff of legend, but of course you would gloss over that.

And that 4th minute header was the fucking difference in the game.

You still salty Liverpool got beat by RM. Ronaldo is still the best player on Earth, period. 4 years ago there might of been an argument, he put that shit to bed. If anything, Messi was supposed to rise as he is younger and Cristiano is only getting older. And then you had Neymar lurking, but Messi has watched Ronaldo lift all kinds of silverware and get BETTER, and Neymar is still finding himself as a player, and is not in the same atmosphere as Ronaldo right now, which NO ONE could have predicted.

Even the most anti Ronaldo talking heads in the media have had to eat crow and tip their cap and recognize the guy is performing at a historic level, and we should just appreciate it.

Anyway, looks like the knockout stage is gonna be interesting. There has been no dominant side so far except the hosts.

Fyi, this thread is much better with Brando on ignore. He's every stereotypical "new" football fan rolled into one

Serbia ain't happy bout them Albanian eagles soaring.

Merrith said:

Part of me wishes they would do that, but there would be a short period of time when it'll be penalties galore.

Click to expand...

Chemo also sucks, but eventually it makes you better.

On unrelated news, BEL- TUN is awesome. Bronn scored lol

A dumb thing to do, but for these guys whose life has been heavily influenced by the balkanic clusterfuck (both Xhaka and Shaqiri are from the albanian minority in Kosovo and their family fled the war to Switzerland in the '90s), it's probably a bit difficult to forget about it when they play against Serbia. I guess a stadium where all the russians were for Serbia and copiously whistled the swiss team also did not help.