It is idle to reinterpret the outcome of a soccer game in 90 minutes due to a single mistake. Or to say it with Lothar Matthäus: “Would be, would be, Fahrradkette.” In Bayer Leverkusen’s game against VfB Stuttgart, the 56th minute ran when VfB striker Sasa Kalajdzic met Timothy Fosu in front of the Leverkusen goal. Mensah shot. The game continued, in return the presumably decisive 3-1 fell for Bayer.
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Would the game have turned out differently if referee Sven Jablonski (or video assistant Felix Zwayer) had decided on penalties? At least Leon Bailey’s goal would not have been scored, VfB would have had a great chance of equalizing – presumably through Silas Wamangituka. Bayer were clearly the better team that afternoon, a home win would have been very possible even with a 2-2 interim result.
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In Stuttgart, those responsible naturally see things differently. Coach Pellegrino Matarazzo complained that he no longer understood the hand rule, manager Sven Mislintat spoke of a “clear wrong decision” and called it a “game-changing situation”, CEO Thomas Hitzlsperger tweeted about the interpretation of the hand rule.
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It wasn’t the best week for video evidence in German football:
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On Tuesday, referee Tobias Stieler decided on goal for Borussia Dortmund in the DFB-Pokal because he had heard a deliberate touch of the ball by a Paderborn player (“deliberate play”) and therefore there was no offside. Correct decision, but difficult to understand for the audience.
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The following day there was a similar situation when Jahn Regensburg beat 1. FC Köln. The FC celebrates the alleged 3: 1 by Benno Schmitz, but because flanker Ondrej Duda was offside and then came to the ball after a rescue attempt by a Regensburger, the referee and VAR decided on a so-called “deliberate save”, i.e. an unintentional falsification Balls. Here it was a wrong decision, as there was an unsuccessful but deliberate attempt at clarification.
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In Leverkusen there should have been penalties because Fosu-Mensah’s hands were above shoulder height. In this case, the hand rules reformulated in 2019 leave no room for maneuver: neither the short distance from which the shot was fired nor the protection of the face. There is no protective hand in football.
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On Sunday, Greuther Fürth was awarded a penalty in the 2nd Bundesliga. Würzburg goalkeeper Hendrik Bonmann is said to have fouled Jamie Leweling, but no touch was recognizable in any TV repetition, instead it looked like a swallow from Fürth. That was the third wrong decision that was made without review in the referee’s review area.
Video assistants also make mistakes
After this week, video evidence critics see themselves confirmed. If FIFA referee Zwayer does not recognize a handball like Fosu-Mensah in the video cellar or rarely used rules such as the »deliberate save« are interpreted incorrectly – how can that make football better? The answer is simple. It’s not about better, it’s about fairer. The rate of the correct evaluation is high, in the first video evidence season 2018/2019, according to the DFB, 82 wrong decisions were corrected.
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Mistakes will keep happening. They also undermine video assistants, despite the use of umpteen TV reruns. Those who admit this could increase their own acceptance.
And yet the referees – who have to adhere to a complicated set of rules – are not to blame for the negative attitude of many football fans: there is a lack of communication.
The path that Tobias Stieler took in Dortmund when he explained his decision to Paderborn’s coach Steffen Baumgart while he was still in the game (which did not bring the hoped-for calm down due to Baumgart’s state of excitement) should only be one of several possibilities.
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Why don’t referees appear more often in interviews after games? Why is the “DFB referee” Twitter channel not used more aggressively instead of not addressing the genesis of the wrong decision at all, as in the Fosu-Mensah case? Why are the VAR decisions not announced in detail and in an understandable manner in the stadiums? Why are mistakes not generally admitted in retrospect in order to ensure transparency?
Then the excitement would have been less in Stuttgart.
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