With Scotland out of the World Cup, my flirtation with women's football is at an end. And with it ends also any residual interest I had in the 'beautiful' game.
As is standard for Scotland, we were faced with a must-win game, did extremely well, and then conspired to blow it in the most painful way possible. To lose a three-goal lead is painful, and I would normally agree that that was the mark of a team that, by rights, didn't deserve to progress.
Normally.
The thing is, though, the first two goals that Scotland, while painful, were both good goals. If Argentina had scored a third goal like that, then that would be one thing. Indeed, if Argentina had scored a really scrappy third goal that trickled over the line after a goalmouth scrum... well that would be fine too.
But what actually happened was a trio of the most outrageous refereeing decisions I've ever witnessed.
First, there was a free kick, at which time Scotland took the opportunity to make a double substitution. However, rather than waiting for us to do that and be ready (as they're supposed to), the referee blew to restart the match while the substitution was in progress - indeed, while we still had twelve players on the pitch. The upshot of this bad decision was that our defender was badly out of position, and that led, in part, to her conceding the penalty.
The penalty decision itself was close but was, sadly, correct. That hurts, but it's fair enough. So even at this point, if that was all that was wrong then I wouldn't have an issue.
But the next cruel twist came after Scotland's keeper saved the penalty, whereupon VAR 'reviewed' the decision and, incorrectly, adjudged that she'd left her line before the ball was kicked. And so the penalty was retaken, and the keeper booked for her troubles. Needless to say, the retaken kick was scored.
The third kick in the teeth came thirty seconds later. Having taken eight and a half minutes deliberating over the VAR decision, and with four further minutes to be added on for stoppage time anyway, the referee instead decided to stop the game, thus eliminating both teams.
As a result of this, an awful lot of people have been blaming VAR for this. I don't - VAR is just the use of technology. All it can do is give people the ability to review what happened; it is still up to people to interpret it and apply the rules appropriately. VAR is therefore exactly as good or as bad as those using it.
A lot of people have also blamed bad officiating. It's not as if these have been the only bad decisions made in this World Cup, after all. And, indeed, there was a truly terrible decision early in the Champions' League final that killed that game, too.
But then, if the officiating was just bad, you would see it being consistently bad, with wrong decisions going either way with roughly equal frequency. But, by a stunning coincidence, these refereeing 'mistakes' invariably go against the smaller country, where 'smaller' is defined according to TV viewing figures. Scotland, as part of the UK, effectively brings zero viewers to the World Cup, and while Argentina is a massive force in the men's game, the women's game is barely a niche interest there. So if they just happened to come to a draw, thus eliminating both and giving their place to some other team... well, wouldn't that be convenient?
Ever since the infamous Thierry Henry handball in 2009, I've had grave doubts about football. They're now at a point where I no longer have doubts. And without a level playing field, I no longer have any interest in the game.
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