Matt Le Tissier is only joking when he says he is mulling over a playing return but the reason the former Southampton forward says as much is because of something very unambiguous: the video assistant referee has been music to the ears of dead-ball specialists at the World Cup. When a Mexico cross hit the outstretched arm of South Korea’s Jang Hyun-soo on Saturday afternoon and the referee Milorad Mazic pointed to the spot, Russia 2018 had its 14th penalty in 28 matches, with six awarded after consulting VAR. In Brazil in 2014, there were only 13 spot-kicks in the entire 64-game tournament.
VAR, rightly, made Brazil sweat to eke past Costa Rica, with the referee retracting a penalty given to Neymar after reviewing the tape, but there have still been some heavy-handed oddities, such as Harry Kane’s treatment by Tunisia defenders on Monday and Aleksandar Mitrovic’s by Swiss ones on Friday. And there will, of course, be a few more yet.
On Saturday afternoon Carlos Vela made no mistake from the spot, days after Cristiano Ronaldo struck from a corner against Morocco and Luis Suárez did likewise in Rostov against Saudi Arabia. In short, set plays are increasingly big business: of the 38 goals scored in the opening round of matches 21 of them (53%) were scored from free-kicks, corners or from the spot. Vela’s penalty was the 11th such goal of the tournament, meaning at that point successful efforts from 12 yards had accounted for 17% of the 64 goals so far. For some context, just 7% of goals at the 2014 World Cup were penalties, and only 6% four years earlier. How does that compare with the Premier League? Only 5.5% of goals scored in the English top flight last season were penalties, and 7.6% in 2016-17. Has the number of penalties diluted the excitement?
Yet Fifa says it is “extremely satisfied with the level of refereeing to date and the successful implementation of the VAR system”. There are surely other contributing factors, too, such as anomalies and individual mistakes, while Adidas insists its sleek ball is not to blame in any way. “Based on our extensive testing, we believe that the design of the Telstar 18 will have no impact on the types of goals scored,” said a spokesperson.
Before the finals, there was understandable apprehension about how the VAR might meddle with a competition that comes around only once every four years, worries that it would cause confusion or even chaos, in turn disengaging spectators. In some quarters it has but the biggest winners so far are undoubtedly the masters of set plays and the penalty kings.
Le Tissier, who scored 48 out of 49 career penalties, says with a laugh: “VAR has made a big difference, in fact there’s that many penalties being given that I think I might make a comeback, just sit on the bench as a penalty specialist.”
For defenders, VAR has proved a double-edged sword. The watching “big brother”, as the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, once put it, has made players think twice about manhandling opponents, for an official in full kit at the control centre in Moscow can, within seconds, flag up a foul. But there is also seemingly a reluctance to get touch-tight, for the same reasons; hulking centre-backs can no longer afford to provide merely nuisance value in the box. It also makes decisions such as that taken by Carlos Sánchez, the Colombia defender sent off three minutes into the game with Japan for deliberate handball, even harder to fathom.
Generally, though, we have seen teams caught in limbo, undecided at the best plan of attack defensively. “Defenders are going to have to adapt to it pretty quickly, they are going to have to start defending properly, and doing the job of a defender as opposed to doing the job as a wrestler when it comes to marking people in the box,” says Le Tissier, insisting the threat of retrospective action will create a cleaner game.
“They have got away with fouling in the box for so many years because they know referees are not always brave enough to give game-changing decisions, because they want it to be a stonewall penalty before they can actually give it. Defenders are going to have to have a change of attitude when it comes to defending inside the box. I don’t think they have actually wised up to it yet.”
Premier League clubs voted against introducing VAR for 2018-19 but the body’s outgoing executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, said in May that it was inevitable the technology will eventually be integrated. “I’m pretty sure we may see it after this season ahead,” Le Tissier says. “And anybody who can get themselves a reputation for being incredibly good at taking penalties or free-kicks in around the box, their valuation will go through the roof and you will pay a premium for those types of players. The amount of set pieces that are going to be given in the next couple of years will increase, and that’s been proven in this World Cup.”
Of the general impact of VAR to date, Le Tissier adds: “I think there are some positives to it, I still think they’ve gone a little bit too early, to do it at a World Cup. The officials themselves haven’t been used to it long enough. I’m in favour of it, but I was in favour of it to be brought in gradually and do perhaps one or two things properly, and then move on to the next thing it can help. I just think we’ve tried to run with it before we can walk. That’s my only real downside with VAR at the moment – I think it has a role to play and will be very useful.”
