Sergio Ramos poses with Iniesta's shirt
The picture of Sergio Ramos posing with a signed Iniesta shirt after El Clásico has redeemed my view of the game ever so slightly after the intensity of some of the play we witnessed on Sunday night. Match official Hernández Hernández lost control of proceedings for failing to deal adequately with a spiral of wayward play that started with the spat between Sergio Ramos and Luis Suárez. Yesterday, Spanish television station GOL showed more Camp Nou footage where the fourth official tells the referee that Luis Suárez fouled Varane in the passage of play leading up to Messi's goal which the match official declined to pay attention to. Why is this? Possibly a consequence of panic for his previous erroneous decisions.
VAR, the solution?
VAR is set to be introduced in LaLiga next season and we'll also see this technology used in the forthcoming Russia World Cup... It will resolve some of the controversial decisions but at what price? Let's look at the second Barça goal ...The VAR official would have informed Hernández Hernández that an infringement occurred in the build-up. The official would then have had to consult the monitor which beams a feed from Las Rozas in Madrid and the referee would then have to annul the Messi goal in front of a packed Camp Nou, and to be frank in the heat of the action, the foul was almost impossible to appreciate.
Human error
I've taken this example as, on watching the replay it's clear that the Uruguayan forward fouls Varane but there are so many other incidents where it's next to impossible to determine a clear verdict after watching the action from a myriad of angles. I know that the introduction of VAR in the game is a reality and it can clarify certain confusion in a match but from what I've seen so far I'm not that enthused. Of course I don't want to see a game tarnished with errors as we witnessed on Sunday with Hernández Hernández's officiating. That's why Sergio Ramos posing with Iniesta's shirt sends a positive image...what happened on Sunday was in the past and the world of football moves forward.