Twitter Goes Berserk as VAR Dominates the Champions League Headlines Once More

The wonderful world of VAR. Designed to solve all of football's decision making problems, eradicate poor decisions and ensure that the game is officiated in an efficient, quick and ultimately, correct manner.

Apart from ever since it's inception, things have just been flat out rubbish. Nobody inside the ground has a clue what is going on, the decisions being made don't always make sense and in tonight's case, decisions have been reversed without the refereeing even reviewing the footage itself.

Isn't that the point of VAR? The 'Video Assistant Referee' advises the referee that he has potentially made the wrong decision and needs to review the footage for himself...? Well not in this case, for reasons that we will go on to reveal.

Naturally, with controversy comes Twitter hysteria - and their is plenty of it doing the rounds after the shambolic events between Schalke and Manchester City in the Champions League. Here's a snippet of what's been doing the rounds..

The decision to award the penalty didn't convince everybody but there were some who felt it was a clear and obvious handball from Nicolas Otamendi, and therefore, a pretty straight forward decision..​​

So we're off to a good start - because VAR corrects the decisions that are obviously wrong, doesn't it? Hmm.

The next issue seemed to be the fact that it took 4,137,862 minutes to reach a decision. Again, this didn't go unnoticed in Twitter land.​​

​​

​​

​​

​​

​​

But with the decision made (by the men watching the screen, which we'll come on to), the deed was done. So what's the overall verdict on VAR? Unanimous ​​panning it seems..

​​

​​​​

​​

​​

​​Still, the good news is that everyone was promised that those in the stadium would know what was going on and would be kept informed of any decisions that were being made!

Oh, wait..

​​

Now back to the big reveal. Because it then emerged that the referee had wanted to review the footage after all for Schalke's first penalty. But he couldn't. Because the technology was broken pitchside. BROKEN. In a Champions League last 16 game. Good lord.

​​

But wait.....there is good news after all!

VAR worked out in the Atletico Madrid-Juventus clash, and successfully overruled a penalty being awarded (when it was infact an infringement that occurred just outside the box) - hallelujah!​​

​​

And then just as things were looking up, the man who needs a goal more than anybody else in the whole wide world - Alvaro Morata - had one chalked off by our VAR chums....and again it wasn't clear cut.

​​

​​

This has all been a bit much for me, so I'm off for a lie down and a cup of tea. Night.


Source : 90min