“They invented VAR.” The technological tool that, after 5 years of its arrival, cannot overcome its original problem: human error

“They invented VAR, they invented VAR”he yelled distraught Enzo Perez at the end of that first half in the Monumental, that November 5, 2017. River lost the superclásico with Boca 1-0 and they had kicked Nacho Fernández out. The Mendoza midfielder conveyed his anger to the referee Germán Delfino and line judges of a local soccer game, for what he understood a dispossession in the semifinal of the Copa Libertadores that Lanús had turned around 96 hours before, with some controversies, but above all with a tension fall notable in the performance of his own team in the second half. That image of Enzo Pérez remained as something folkloric, symbolic and a witness to the entry of technology into South American soccer.

If at that time we had asked “How do you imagine VAR will be working in Argentina and South America in five years?”surely the general answer would have been “better than now, more oiled, more useful for an increasingly fair football”. pure logic. The truth is that those five years have almost passed and the perception of justice does not emerge, naturally and clearly, for these payments. Before, human failures were suspected. Human failures at the service of technology are now suspected. Always a football under suspicion. with or without system.

Let’s arrange the melons. Let us banish the first controversy, the natural one: the VAR works. You may or may not like its use, but it works. It is progress. Its usefulness is known in rugby, hockey, tennis, polo, basketball. If in football arouses suspicion, angry complaints, annoyance and perception of dispossession, the problem is not technology, but the vices of football. From those who seek a “customized VAR” for their teams to those who use it with a particular and arbitrary criterion.

FIFA mandated the universal use of technology. In the most important leagues in the world it works satisfactorily. Can there be mistakes or questionable decisions? Of course, they are also humans who handle the tool. But controversial cases are fewer. And above all, not so crude.

What happened on Wednesday in the rematch for the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores between Vélez and River, with Matías Suárez’s goal annulled for an alleged hand in the action of the header, opened a new chapter of distortions in the use of the tool: the defenestration of the party’s highest authority.

Robert TobarChilean, 44 years old, He is a referee. With a category more European than South American. Sober, respectful, zero grandiloquent, nothing cholulo of the protagonists. Well, FIFA, Conmebol and all their assistants in the VAR room publicly left it as a mere whistle blower, like someone who runs 100 minutes alongside the players and appears, to the people and viewers, to be directing the game. He receives a salary for it.

Tobar validates the goal, is he summoned to review? the play by a supposed hand of Suárez and 43 repetitions of the action happen to him, while they are inducing him to annul it. “Doesn’t look like a hand to me”Tobar says. They raise the bet from booths. The people and players, meanwhile, wait. Minutes that are an eternity: they were 5m15s in total. “For me it’s a goal”, reaffirms the Chilean referee. They continue to induce him to be in an error of appreciation. So, he summons one of his assistants, No. 2 (Claudio Ríos).

“After reviewing the images over and over again, I see a contact that does not leave me sure to cancel. At that moment I felt that another appreciation from a member of my field colleagues was important, for which I call Claudio Ríos (assistant 2) so that he can also check and give me his opinion, free from any communication that I had with him. the VAR. Claudio agreed that, after Suárez’s header, the ball skidded on his forearm and entered the goal,” Tobar said in a message to an ESPN reporter.

The blunt statement by Claudio Ríos, who with just 3 repetitions was certain that there was a hand, defines Tobar. Maybe not what he thinks. Perhaps you have felt alone, like a crusader, against everyone. He knows it in his intimacy. And he sanctions what the people who run the VAR, from anonymity, want him to sanction. Disallowed goal. He exploits the controversy, natural. Outcome: Tobar is publicly exposed as a wet chicken. Victim of the system.

Week after week the controversies arise due to the disparity of criteria when it comes to sanctioning or modifying rulings through the VAR. And in the Copa Libertadores playoffs, the bet goes up. The glory is greater winning the title in a single year than winning 20 tournaments together in the AFA, Grondona or Chiqui Tapia. It does not matter. And there are millions of dollars at stake: for participating, for advancing the wheel, for collection, for advertising contracts, for the chance to play in the Club World Cup. A system decision can collapse the budgets of one or more years of a club.

And logically, everything makes more noise when the biggest clubs are involved. It happened in 2018, with the absurd inaction of the VAR and the referee Daronco (the Brazilian Pitana) in a River-Independiente with Pinola hitting Benítez inside the area. He passed in the 2020 Palmeiras-River rematch (played in January 2021), with the decisions of the Uruguayan Esteban Ostojich. And it happened again months later with Boca and his two matches with Atlético Mineiro (one goal disallowed in each), tinged with suspicion and with Boca eliminated on penalties. This, beyond Riquelme’s television acting: even today Román keep playing for the standsmoving the pieces at the height of Garry Kasparov.

The VAR will have its flats in Europe, but everything flows, globally speaking, with greater harmony than in South America, where every week is a witch hunt. The rigidity of the system doesn’t help either. For something Tobar did not appreciate the look of his Brazilian cabin colleagues, Rafael Traci and Braulio Machado, and remained in his position. A logical system would have been, after seeing an image 43 times and not being convinced to modify a bug, to end the radio exchange with a “I understand your position, but I still don’t see a hand. It’s a goal and I’m the match referee. The decision is mine.” For some reason he didn’t.

The discussions continue, photos and videos go viral (one of them, from @elgraficoweb, suggests that the ball brushes the face of Velez’s defender who closes in the play). It can be inferred that River was denied the chance to go to penalties (where he could still lose) as affirming that Velez was superior in the overall series and could well have defined it in Liniers. All reasonable.

Five years after that dislocated Enzo Pérez, little has changed in terms of the perception of having greater justice through technology. Looking outwards, we can say, five years from now, that the panorama does not radiate an image of progress indoors. It is Argentina, it is Argentine soccer managed by the AFA, and it is South America, it is South American soccer managed by Conmebol. The VAR has an origin flaw: it is handled by humans. In some places, it affects less.