Hector Gambini
07/21/2021 11:32 AM
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 07/21/2021 1:45 PM
(Warning to the reader:
the author of these lines is a fan of San Lorenzo and, as such, he generally has no interest in Boca winning. Quite the contrary. But fair is fair
).
Mouth goes.
Straight free kick into the Atlético Mineiro area, the goalkeeper steps forward to take the ball but it hits him in the chest and rebounds.
A Boca player kicks at goal and goal.
Boca goal.
However, the VAR reviews the play to make sure that there was no foul on the goalkeeper and that he did not lose the ball from his hands and rebound for just that.
That doubt
seems reasonable
.
You look, check, review and no,
there is no fault on the goalkeeper
, who loses the ball solely because of his own mistake.
Boca goal, then.
Either.
Now the VAR will check if the player who did not foul the goalkeeper at the end was enabled when the pass started.
"He disputes the ball to the goalkeeper,"
says one of the VAR according to the audio that Conmebol uploaded to YouTube.
It would be necessary to explain to the man that
that is what football is about.
To dispute the ball with rivals, always within the rules, as we have just seen in this case.
But the VAR returns to the position of that Boca player and there is a strenuous effort by the reviewers - should we call them
"varistas"
? - to
look for the hair in the egg
.
Because they search for it with such dedication, they find it.
"Give me the knee, give me the knee,"
says the
varista
who reviews the images with the meticulousness of a surgeon.
He asks for it like someone lost in the desert would ask for a glass of water.
It means that they show him the image of the Boca player's knee, frozen at the moment he goes to look for the ball.
At first glance, the Boca forward's knee appears, however,
behind the right glute
of the Mineiro defender.
But the
varista
insists so much, but so much, that they draw a dotted line from the gluteus to the floor and another from the knee to the floor so that the crossed and robotic coordinates of the computer determine that, indeed,
the knee is ahead of the gluteus
.
The system does not determine it, but will it be four centimeters, eight?
And always from that angle, where the camera is placed.
We learned it in basic school geometry many years ago: if the viewing angle varies by one degree, the actual inches of the event will always be
distorted one way or the other
.
So the VAR is not an objective justice, as it is intended, but affected by the location of the fixed cameras with respect to moving objects.
"Give me the beauty, the beauty please"
, begs the
varista,
referring to a camera.
Beauty
.
With so much knee versus glute dispute, VAR
forgets the spirit of the law
.
And of the game.
The law of the
off side
-
orsai
, we shout on the court - seeks to protect from numerical inferiority, to avoid the sporting advantage of a player scoring a goal without having at least two rivals between the line of his position and that of the goal, such as It happens between amateur footballers who show vice in the pasture, the beach or the soccer field.
Now, once it has been legally determined that being in the same line as the opponent
is not an advanced position
, what is the sense of looking for
the advancement of a meniscus, a little finger of the right foot or a steep nose
over the last dorsal border of the adversary?
There is no sporting advantage for someone who advances a knee four centimeters on a rival gluteus.
It is the
same line
, a logical, sensible and rational criterion that prevents VAR and its healthy benefits from becoming an evil instrument dominated by fools.
And
same line is not off side
.
Boca goal, then. Illegitimately annulled.