A sobering reminder of the passage of time this evening, watching Salernitana v. Milan.
I remember seeing Argentina U20s dazzle in 2007, led by Aguero but with remarkably fluid performances from a dominating central defender, absolute class with the ball, kid named Fazio.
He moved to Sevilla, becoming a consistent performer but not quite at the elite level. His move to Tottenham, Spurs must have been gambling on his recovery from some bad injuries - which did happen, but Spurs had long since given up on him. Back to Sevilla, but you cannot go home again. Sevilla shunted him off to Roma on loan, then a purchase. Some good years at Roma, then kicked to the curb by Mourinho. Solid couple of seasons for Salernitana, but struggling with injuries. Now he is the captain of the side at the very bottom of the table. Thirty-seven by the end of the season, the end is in sight.
The decision by VAR to disallow that goal for Sassuolo is a prime example of either making up the rules as they go or not having a clue in the first instance.
Player who was judged to have been interfering was in an offside position but it’s the defender in front of him that gets the initial block.
I think it is 38 with his back to us who the initial shot is blocked by. The ball spoons up in the air and someone completely different runs around and smashes it in on the half vollet. The decision here is the player clearly in an offside position has affected play by challenging the white 38 for the ball on the shot he blocked making it offside.
he didnt. You can actually see him pulling away but cannot get a clean break because the white 38 is holding his shirt
even if he did, you cannot rationally say that he could have made any better a block than he did given it was smashed at him from inches away
It’s an absurd call, but one that well illustrates how complex the decision making has become with some of these rules that makes the ref miss the point of what they are trying to adjudicate on…they get caught up in the minutia of the individual steps of the process and not on “did that attacker use his position to make defending that play more difficult?”
Which for me is the clearest indicator yet why VAR should only be called into straight “has the guy who’s scored done so in an offside position”, anything else including all this interfering crap should be decided onfield between the ref and lino and no one else.
He was in the stands versus AC Milan (he had been sent off due to referee abuse in the Coppa match versus Lazio, I believe). Always an odd situation, but he was behaving bizarrely. Must have seen it coming and/or wanted it to happen.
Funny, was looking at the table the other day after their defeat, thinking, Roma might struggle to even make the top 10. Not far from CL spots though, but they’ve been behind some surprising teams all season.
