Upon further review, Marcelo Zalayeta won’t be suspended
By: Bob | October 31st, 2007The lingering furor from Juventus’ match against Napoli on Saturday is interesting on a few levels. You have a club that has been involved with its fair share of fixed matches crying foul over the referee’s performance during Napoli’s 3-1 win. You also have the usual call for video replays whenever a referee blows a decision. Critics of using video to review the decisions of referees point out that it will slow the game down and that it would be difficult to administer without turning soccer into something like a stand-and-wait American football game. What you don’t often hear is the argument that video evidence itself can be misleading.
That has turned out to be the case in the diving incident involving Napoli’s Marcelo Zalayeta. After watching the initial video replays, Serie A officials slapped him with a two-game ban for his theatrics. A just punishment if you just watch the play from that angle.
But it turns out there was more to the play than was captured on that camera. The video above shows Juventus defender Nicola Legrottaglie tugging on Zalayeta’s shirt before his swan dive over keeper Gianluigi Buffon. The same play leads to two different conclusions when viewed through two different cameras. As a result of the new video evidence, Zalayeta has had his ban overturned.
This points to an issue that I hadn’t ever really thought of before. Is video evidence really reliable and would it be practical to implement this throughout the soccer world? There were lots of cameras at the Napoli-Juventus game, but what happens when it is teams that are playing in a lower division and there aren’t multiple video angles? What happens when the evidence points to something that isn’t a penalty?
What would happen is that mistakes would occur, just like they do when humans are involved.
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Comments
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I’d say allow two challenges to be lodged by the coach, for each of those times, should the call not be overturned then for that particular chalenge issue the coach a yellow card for wasting the fans time.
Which means that if both challenges don’t pan out then the coach is looking at a yellow card accumulation.
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United States
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I say if it is a game changing event, like a penalty decision, then video replays are justified (only after the play goes dead). The use of video replays to determine guilt and assess sentencing of suspensions is good as well. Stopping the game for a dubious call that is not a penalty does the game no good at all.
Take rugby league and union, they will use the video official to determine if a team has scored but unless the try is under dispute there is no recourse to the video official.
Football is a relatively low scoring game so penalties can be of huge importance. Taking 2 minutes to make the right decision (or a more considered one) is worth it, in my opinion.
Posted from
United States -
I agree with Charlton; in tennis, players allowed a certain number of challenges per set, why can’t they do that for soccer? It would make sense.
And plus, it shouldn’t take too long; the 4th official will take the decision. Simple.
Posted from
Canada -
mounir?
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United States
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