When it comes to VAR, generally nothing surprises me anymore. I've been saying since day one that it's net counter-productive, and they should get rid of it. But even by that low bar, this decision was especially egregious. In case you think I'm exaggerating:
But whatever, life goes on. What really made me irritated was what went on at half-time. The feed I was watching happened to be the American CBS broadcast. All four of the studio people said the whole ball was out of play. So they brought on a feed of their "rules expect", some smarmy looking woman who said this, with the above image on screen with her-- and I am quoting close to verbatim: "How the protocol works is that it goes to the VAR booth, and they look at it. Did you know that nine out of ten times the ball is actually still in play??"
Who cares! Nine out of ten times when I feel like I need to take a shit, I need to take a shit. That doesn't tell me anything about whether I need to take a shit right now! It's a silly non-sequitur, because she knows the referees made a mistake, but like most modern middle-aged women, she's all-in with "the authorities are always right". She could see a player karate kick another player, and she'd say "Did you know the referees know it was only ketchup instead of blood??"
One of the men in the studio challenged her. "I'll admit, to me the whole ball looked out". Her reply-- and this was the second doozy: "Actually, Serie A is using a semi-assisted technology, so they know where everything is all of the time! Gee, I wish they would pass down the 3D images in situations like this to prove that they are correct!" All four men in the studio cucked: "Wow, that's amazing, great explanation, I didn't know that!!"
So I did a quick search: I'm pretty sure she was lying. I'll post a correction if it turns out she was correct. I skimmed through several of these articles, and they all say that Serie A is using a semi-assisted technology for offside this season, where cameras in the stadium are tracking the players-- so the camera can line up the passing player's leg with where the receiving player is, in relation to the last man.
It has nothing to do with the ball, only the players. Almost all of the articles explicitly say so: "In the 2023 season, there will be no tracking device in the ball itself". And this new technology is only being used for offside, as the articles also clearly indicate.
She made up a lie, on air, to cover for "the authorities", after having gaslit the audience with the actual picture showing the whole ball over the line. It was CNN's "fiery but peaceful protest" with the burning building right behind the reporter, all over again. It doesn't help that someone on the Lazio forum I read posted this image, in defense of the incident:
He said that he was an "engineer", which is apparently how he's so darned clever. As if a single person thinks the ball is a cube instead of a sphere, and doesn't know what "projection" is!
Well, the "engineer" needs to go re-take Logic 101 at his university: his image shows that it's possible to be deceived by a camera angle-- it has literally nothing to inform us about the match incident! It's yet another non-sequitur, has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I can sit all day and position crazy objects all over my house and "prove" almost anything by taking fifty million pictures with my phone from every angle, then cherry picking which ones to show.
Those objects are not the actual ball, on the actual pitch, in the actual position it was in!
Grrrr.