With all the controversy over the obvious penalty yesterday, what does everyone think about copying the NFL in the Coaches challenge. Basically each team has two challenges per game and can throw a flag onto the pitch if they wish to challenge a call be the ref. The ref would go to a TV monitor and review the play and either confirm the call or overturn it. Now in the NFL all the plays are televised and the coaching staff have an opportunity to review the play and decide if they should challenge, where in the EPL the manager would have to decide on the live play to make a decision, but it could be worth a shout in the case of today, a review would have been a penalty.
I am no supporter of interruptions to our wonderful game. JRod didn't get a penalty today and it cost us nothing. He got an undeserved penalty against Villa and we got three points. I'm not complaining. American games are for Americans who accept all this guff...remember they wanted to introduce 4 quarters into the game (so they could insert adverts and the locals could buy popcorn) when they held the World Cup.
Entirely different games with natural pauses. If a penalty is given there is a pause, but if it isn't given the oppositon manager is given a chance to interrupt the play for strategic reasons. It would end up being used to prevent breakway goals. Would you really want to give such power to Wenger and AF with their distorted specs. The worldwide popularity of football is due to the fast pace and ostensible simplicity.
Agree with Fran that the challenge aspect would ruin the flow of the game. Even in Tennis the players use it as gamesmanship to slow the match down. With goal line tech next season I do think we shall see more technology introduced, but 1st as an aid to the officials. Like in rugby but only in scenarios when the whistle has been blown. For example "Is there any reason I should not award a penalty?" Many controversial penalty and goal awards are often followed by long protests from the aggrieved team. This would not therefore interrupt the current flow.
The only reason i dont like the idea is that i can see managers just throwing down flags in the last seconds in desperation which would ruin it. Needs to be a punishment if it is not a foul
It would be great until a correctly awarded decision was overturned by the TV official into a wrong one, which would surely happen occasionally.
Analysis of incidents from every angle on Sky can still not produce a decision. Even in cricket (where it is used) they claim it can give wrong results as distortion can suggest a ball has touched the ground when it hasn't. A slight touch in slo-mo on a player can look nothing, whereas in full flight it has made him lose his balance. The only place for technology is ball line decisions about goals and, even in that case, is it worth it for the very few times it matters...however, I will let you have GLT if it will get a few knickers untwisted
I agree, in the NFL if the coach gets the first challenge wrong he losses the second challenge, also there are rules for what are challengeable, let say any offence like, a tackle or handball inside the penalty area would be challengeable or a tackle that was deemed to be close enough to the penalty area could be challenged to see if the tackle occurred inside or outside the box. Also a sending off could be challenged and reviewed but a booking would not unless it was a second booking resulting in a sending off. I am not trying to suggest that we adopt the 4 hours it takes to play 60 minutes of an NFL game but I think with technology that we have today we should be able to use it to get the correct call from the referee or linesman (sorry, person). Enjoyed the discussion and hope something can be done in the future.
The problem is in that the NFL the aspects of the game that can be challenged are usually very cut and dry. For example the position of the ball as the player hits the ground, if the ball hits the ground, if the player's knee is down, if a player caught a ball in bounds and so on and so forth. The things that can't be challenged are judgement calls like holding or pass interference (for those not NFL-savvy, effectively about whether a player is physically fouled), as they effectively come down to opinion, just like fouls in football. Did he touch him enough for him to go down? Did the ball travel far enough for it to be a hand-ball? And so on, they all basically boil down to opinion. There are some where an opinion is easy to form, such as the Toure-Rodriguez penalty claim, and is fairly unanimous, but for most incidents it is not crystal clear. You would get the 5% of blatantly wrong decisions at either end of the spectrum corrected, but the middle 90% would be a mess. Off-sides and goal-line incidents could and should be reviewed in my opinion, but everything else is too much of a grey area.
I'm with Fran on this one. Don't like the idea of interruptions in play, just doesn't suit football in my opinion. Works well in cricket, rugby etc as the games have natural pauses in play. Also don't like the idea of goal line technology, although i do seem to be in the minority whenever i speak with others about it. Referee decisions are all part of the game for me, they do even out over a season and the controversy and talking points they generate pays the mortgage of many pundits.
Good point. Interruptions could be more frequent once players know that challenging the ref could be productive.
Why not go to the other end of this argument and keep play continuous unless the ball goes out of play? If there was no such thing as a foul it rules out diving. The exception would be if a player was actually injured by a foul, but then he would have to go off, either for a minimum 10 minutes or permanently. The same would apply to the player causing the injury. Handballs, I hear you cry? No such thing as an accidental handball, free kick for anything deliberate, plus a yellow card. Oh, and get rid of offside too.
