Soviet doping apparently wore off today.
Actually they were a man down and still closing down Uruguay like mad up until the end. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually increased their sprint stats since they were a man down. Some UK paper, Independent?, is claiming that FIFA has had evidence for 18 months now of Russian doping. Either way they clearly are doping and it will be amazing if it's claimed they passed their drug tests during the tournament.
The problem with the VAR is that while it corrects some things that would have been unfair, it also creates additional judgement calls that also can be unfair. This Iran vs Portugal match will be a point of reference as to why that stuff will be gone or severely changed. You had everything in it: the good case with the missed foul on Ronaldo, the bad case with an unintentional handball that had basically zero effect on play that somehow turned into a penalty (and on top of that play was stopped in total confusion for 3 min while the VAR was reviewing the images) and the outrageously absurd with the review of the altercation involving Ronaldo. It's absurd because half the people who see it say it's a foul another half say it's not, so already it's something the VAR should not touch, then, if it's a foul it's a red and if it's not it's nothing, but the ref' went for a diplomatic yellow (I guess you have to do what you have to do to not get lynched, but his World Cup is over).
On the up side, as far as dramaturgy go, these two matches playing simultaneously was some serious nail biting stuff!
The handball review for Iran didn't take 3 minutes and it was clear as day why they were reviewing. The UK press is up in arms about it, at least those that already didn't want VAR, which I think is ridiculous in that it was a handball. The rules are the issue in that it's always up to the ref on the field to decided whether it was intentional or not. In LFC's games vs. Roma the handball's that went against us were different how? It's always going to be a grey area and always has been VAR or no VAR. The biggest thing for me so far is that when VAR asks the on field referee to review it himself then I think in every instance the on field ref has agreed. Can anybody remember one instance where they did not? The ref has on one wrist the buzzer for the goal decision system, on the other wrist he should have a VAR buzzer and then the VAR ref announces the call in the stadium and that's it. I do agree on the Ronaldo call in that it shouldn't be a VAR issue if the ref wasn't going to card him in the first place. VAR is just supposed to be used to determine if a yellow was worthy of a red as well.
Hoping for a good game at least. Spain/Russia might be interesting too.
Odds are it will be a terrible game in that both want to counter attack, aren't very mobile and have no issue with random acts of violence. Will need an early goal to change it up in my mind. Spain should sleepwalk through Russia assuming they don't dope even more.