The penalty awarded to FC Porto against Lazio was a perfect example of VAR removing context from what is after all a contact sport, writes Susy Campanale.
The initial call from referee Deniz Aytekin, who could not have been better placed, was to book Mehdi Taremi for simulation, as he flailed his arms going down dramatically and seemed to drag his foot to seek contact with Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.
However, VAR Christian Dingert intervened and called for the official to look at it again with the on-field monitor.
What he saw from that camera angle was a slowed-down version showing contact between Taremi and the Lazio player.
Of course there was contact, this was never in doubt, but this remains a contact sport, even when refereeing guidelines seem to suggest otherwise.
The problem is that VAR shows the referee a very specific moment of the move, taking away crucial context.
A VAR on-field review shows two legs making contact, not that one was dragged on purpose to make that contact happen.
It shows a player going down, not that he flung himself to make the most of the impact he had sought out.
VAR should’ve let the referee watch the whole thing again, in real time and not slowed down, from different angles.
The slow-motion inevitably makes things look worse than they really are, so this is a technique that also has to be used on handball incidents, because human error and the speed of the movement are essential variants in what is ultimately a subjective decision.