Given the repeated video assistant referee calamities in their domestic A-League, it was perhaps fitting the technology’s first decisive use at a World Cup came in an Australia game.
Yet the hotly-debated VAR seemed to work as advertised. France striker Antoine Griezmann was through on goal in the 56th minute when Australian Josh Risdon executed a diving last-gasp tackle. Despite seeming to initially touch the ball, Risdon caught Griezmann’s trailing leg and the Frenchman fell in the box.
Uruguayan referee Andrés Cunha waved play on, but a minute later he stopped the match and strolled to the pitch-side televisions. After a wait that seemed to take an eternity at the cavernous Kazan Arena – with thousands of yellow-clad Australian fans holding their collective breath – Cunha pointed to the spot. The fouled Griezmann converted the penalty with ease.
Australia’s Dutch manager Bert van Marwijk was initially non-committal. “I didn’t see it back on television,” he said. “From my position I couldn’t see it really well.” But the questioning continued and eventually, the taciturn manager could not hold back.
“I saw him standing there [at the VAR console],” Van Marwijk said. “The body language was that he didn’t know – from my position. Then you have to take a decision: France or Australia. It is very difficult to decide – for a referee with 50,000 people on his back, he must decide when he is doubting. On the other side, I think he was standing very close to the moment of the penalty and he directly said no penalty, he directly said go on. He is also a human being, so everybody makes mistakes. But when you are 100% for sure that is no penalty and then you go and you doubt. You have to ask him.”
Saturday’s use of VAR will continue the raging controversy about the appropriateness of the technology. “Everyone is talking about the VAR,” Van Marwijk continued. “For me it is the beginning – it is a start. We have to learn a lot about this system. But I prefer to say something about the game. For me that is much more important. I cannot change [the VAR] anymore.”
Les Bleus manager Didier Deschamps acknowledged the partisan nature of assessments of the technology. “I am not going to complain about VAR today because it was in our favour,” said the Frenchman. And as if to prove the partisanship point, Australian players were unanimous that it was not a penalty.
“It is a difficult one to digest,” said goalkeeper Mat Ryan. “I feel hard done by. I don’t feel we were beaten by a better team, but almost by technology a little bit. I don’t want to cause controversy, and I am not here to make excuses, but there are a lot of grey areas.
“I was pretty sure from what I had seen that it was not [going to be a penalty]. But it was given. Speaking to Josh afterwards he said he touched the ball and I don’t think he’s a liar.”
France’s Griezmann, an unlikely man-of-the-match after an underwhelming performance, was unequivocal. “I felt the contact,” he offered. “For me it was a penalty, but I did not hear a whistle so I thought of something else.” Ultimately, Deschamps argued, it remains a human decision. “Even with the VAR you can interpret goals,” he said. “Referees get alerts from the system – it is really up to him.”
Technology may be the lightning rod for modern controversy, but some things will never change: football remains a match of contested decisions. Opposing players will never agree.
While Australia equalised through a less controversial penalty minutes later – a blatant handball in the box from Samuel Umtiti – technology would again intervene to determine the outcome of Group C’s opener. With less than 10 minutes remaining, a Paul Pogba strike deflected off a defender and into the cross-bar. The ball bounced downward, landing just inside the Australian line, with goal line technology instantly confirming the winning goal’s validity.
“That’s football,” a crest-fallen Van Marwijk summed up. But not like we have previously known it. As one French journalist suggested to Australia’s coach, the Socceroos had just suffered a “21st century defeat”.
