Reno 1868 vs Phoenix Rising: USL Championship Playoffs Match Preview

Now, it that was the only problem I could buy into the idea that catching some things and fixing them is still better if you can't catch everything, but that just isn't the case. This is where we get to both the problem with eliminating the human element, and also how fallacies in the system create other unwanted results. This is also where we get to the example I have been mentioning. Before we get there, I know I am throwing a lot of different sports at you here, and also that this section is running long, but I think this is more interesting then spending the next 500 words telling you about what formation I think Phoenix is going to play tonight. If you want that there are plenty of places to find it, or I have written at length about tactics and players in my previous articles.

Moving forward the example I have been promising comes from an Atlanta Braves vs LA Dodgers baseball game that I heard on the radio the other day. I don't recall what game it was in the series, and I didn't actually see it because as I mentioned I was listening on the radio, but here is what was described to me. First, if you don't all ready know, in baseball, a ball that is thrown by the pitcher and hits the batsmen allows that batsmen to advance to 1st base. However, the batsmen cannot intentionally move into the ball. In the game I was listening to LA's Corey Seager was ruled to have not been hit by a pitch, a call that was challenged by Los Angeles. In this situation, the commentator described it that the ball did hit Seager, however, in the words of the commentator he very clearly "kicked at it like a soccer ball", thus an infraction that should have not allowed him to claim first base. However, (and this was verified) in baseball's replay rulebook whether or not the ball hit the batter is challengeable, but apparently by some oversight, whether or not the batter moved into the ball intentionally is not reviewable. Long story short, Seager was awarded the base in this situation, thus overturning a correct call on the field because of a technicality of the replay rules. Now, obviously this particular rule can be rewritten in the offseason, but I am sure you can understand what kind of can of worms this could be in any sport, and how many times replay codes will have to be rewritten. Which is a problem in itself, because if you are rewriting the replay rules every year (something that usually really does happen in most sports that have replay) then you are giving an inconsistent set of rules year by year, something that ultimately degrades the integrity of league records. AND THIS ISN'T EVEN THE WORST PART!

What I mean by the worst part is that so far what I have done is to establish what the problems are with VAR (instant replay), now when we bring back in that whole human element I've been talking about. What I am getting by this is that the better system is the one that we have had all along, the one where the only mistakes that "usually" happen are those natural kind like just didn't see it. This is something I have been overall consistent on, and you can look back through my articles, (yes I was hard on Malik Baldawi about 4 minutes of phantom stoppage time because I am not saying that officials shouldn't be held to a high standard, and that is different than a split second error) is that when a call goes against PRFC I don't usually get too fired up about it, because that is that nature of sports. Or in other words, you have to take the good with the bad.

So we have already established the problems with instant replay, and the problems of not instant replay are self explanatory. Ultimately though, what it adds up to is that both are going to give you missed calls. Furthermore, when taking into consideration examples like Seager's kicked pitch ending up with a right call being turned into a wrong call, it's not even conclusive that we are getting more of the calls right with replay. Especially, when you take into consideration that most calls in most sports are judgement calls. What I mean by this is that the rules are generally not clear cut enough to not involve some kind of human judgement. Whether the ball went out of bounds or is an example of a non-judgement call, either the ball went out, or it didn't. If every call was like this then replay would work great, unfortunately, especially in football, most are not. I mean after all, if human judgement wasn't needed then why do don't we even have a ref on the pitch, and not just a bunch of guys watching videos of the game somewhere?

Its because just like its easy to criticize a manager for making a substitution (a decision you did see), while having no idea what happened on the training pitch that week (something only the manager saw), much of officiating goes beyond the call that is being made when the whistle blows. What I mean by this is the average referee is doing a lot of observing and listening during the game to be able to make a correct judgement of what should or shouldn't be called. To explain this better, let's look at the problem of "robot referees" and why it just wouldn't work. To go back to our holding in American Football example above, it's a penalty the by the letter of the law could probably be called on every play, but there is a recent it isn't, and also why it only seems to be called a key times. Now, if you were to have a robot referee for example watching each player on every play and calling strictly by the letter of the law then it would end up with exactly just that. There would be a holding penalty called on every play, and it would ruin the game.

The reason is because a human referee has the ability to make the judgement when to make the call at the proper time. In other words, let's say that the referee observes that the left tackle commits what is by the letter of the law a holding penalty, but the play goes to the right for no positive yardage. In that case the infraction hasn't effected the outcome of the play, so the ref can let that slide. On the other hand, if the left tackle makes the same holding penalty and the play is a run left off that goes for 50 yards then its going to be a flag. To further this example, a ref might see that a player is committing "borderline" holding on every play, maybe he lets it slide the first and second time, but the third time he sees it then it's going to be a penalty. These are examples of how a human referee can manage a game.

This also comes into play with things like deciding between a yellow or a red card. Now, everyone know by now that every foul looks worse in slow motion than in real time, so that alone is a problem. Furthering this problem though is taking away the human element of knowing what was happening on the pitch. Now, I know that "intent" isn't specifically worded into the rules when determining whether something should be a yellow card or a red card by The Laws of the Game, but let's look at it this way. If player x kicks player y in the knee while kicking at the ball which is something that can go for a yellow or a red depending on "how dangerous or out control it was". Now the replay can tell you something about that play in the moment but, the referee on the field is going to know things like "player x took two smaller fouls that I let slide earlier, so that's going to be a send off", or "he has played really clean all match, it going to be a strong yellow but he can stay on for now". Let's just call this common sense refereeing.

Ok, so now we have established why sometimes the human element of the referee might have the information to make the decision based on all of the facts. Now, let's finish up by looking at the human element of how a replay decision can effect the players artificially. This last one I am going to need you to take a little bit of a leap with me on because it's hard to quantify with stats, but I promise you it exists. Now usually I am one to err on the side of science, but in this case I have to say the scientist are wrong. What I am talking about is momentum, or "form" as it is most often referred to in the beautiful game.

Now if you have watched any amount of sports in your life, you know that momentum exists. It's just a little bit different than what the scientists are trying to find. In my opinion, there are 2 factors that have to do with form or momentum. The simpler of the two, and the one that has more to do with long term form or momentum is health. I haven't specifically researched this, but I think it would be a safe bet that you will find that teams generally have their winning streaks coincide with their least injuries. Less obvious to the eye though, and the ones that have more to do with individual form though are the injuries that guys are playing though. If you know anything about professional sports then you already know the list of guys playing through injuries, (especially late in the season) is everyone. I tend to feel that when players are in "good form" that it probably just means they are lucky enough to not be fighting a lot of nagging injuries at that point. Athletes are (here's that human element again) human after all, and competing at this level injuries are going to happen. I mean think about if you step on somebodies foot and twist your ankle. What does it take? A week? 10 days before that feels 100% again? Now imagine how often soccer players do that. Hell, last night I tried to pull a blanket out from behind myself, fell out of bed, and twisted my shoulder a bit. When I show up at the ballpark tomorrow nobody is going to know that, they are just going to see that my fastball is 3 mph slower than normal. Long story short here is that injuries effect form, but this isn't the important part because it doesn't have to do with replay.

The part that does, and the magic "intangible ingredient" to momentum is confidence. When a team of player is in a good run of form it isn't because of the "scientific momentum" thing. It's simply because they believe in themselves more. It goes back to that whole thing of visualizing the ball going into the net before you take a PK. If you are going up there and the goalie looks 10 feet tall to you then you have already missed the shot before you have taken it. Where I am going with this is that replay artificially swings "momentum" in a game by giving a team and artificial confidence boost by having a call overturned in their favor. What I mean by this is that throughout the match or even season there is a series of games within the game if you will. For each game within the the game your confidence either goes up or goes down vs failure or success.

To start with something small, let's look at a dribble. Say that you receive the ball and try to dribble past the defender and the ball gets stolen. Your confidence goes down a bit. Then, let's say 5 minutes later you get the ball again, dribble and ball gets stolen. Your confidence goes down even more, and at that point you are probably just going to pass and not even try it again. The flip side of that of course is that for every successful dribble you make, your confidence is going to go up, and in turn you are going to have confidence to keep trying. This is a rudimentary example, but the point that I am getting toward is that there are both team and individual moments like this throughout the game. Some are much bigger than others. For example I would think in soccer than saving a penalty kick would the biggest one I can think of. In this situation you are thinking that you have almost certainly conceded and getting that save is a breath of life. I haven't done any research on this, but I would venture to guess that if you were to pull 100 random matches that involved a saved penalty that you would find that the club that made the save would have done very well from that point on in the game. What does this have to do with replay you might ask? A tremendous amount actually.

The reason is because replay has the effective of magnifying small moments in the game into bigger moments, and big moments into game changing moments artificially. The reason is because the confidence boost of winning or losing the challenge almost always substantially raises or lowers the confidence of a given side much more than the outcome of a call on the field in real time would. What I mean by this is it creates an artificial winning moment in the if you win the challenge, even though you have done anything more on the playing pitch, it still ends up being a massive boost in confidence mentally because you feel like you have won some. If you win a challenge in a key moment early on, then it can even be game changing.

To see this, and wrap up this section I will return to our Dodgers and Braves series, where Atlanta entered game with the confidence of having won the previous game, and got off to a quick to run lead. In the 3rd inning they scored what looked to be a 3rd run, and a 3-0, but that call was reviewed, revealing that the runner left early, and the run was taken off the board. Now, in this instance replay got the call correct, which I am not disputing, but that I feel like this particular replay changed the outcome of the game by artificially affecting the confidence of both teams conversely. The result of the replay, or the result of the correct call being made in real time may seem the same on paper in that either way Atlanta has 2 runs and the inning is over. In my opinion, what is different is that in the replay scenario you go through the entire process of putting the run on the board, Atlanta having the high of celebrating the score, immediately to have their confidence dropped by the taking the run off the board. Meanwhile LA has the low of conceding the run, followed by the high of having the run taken off, and the feeling of "winning" the challenge. That was enough confidence for LA's first batter in the next inning to hit home run, and the confidence would only build from there in an ultimately 7-3 win. Now I know that is a lot about a baseball game in a soccer article, but it's a perfect illustration of my point, and you should be able to find a replay of this game pretty easily to see what I mean.

Thanks for hanging with me through all of that, I know it's a lot to consider, but to me it all adds up to VAR does more harm than good.