To steal an expression from another sport, the opening game of the World Cup was a “no-hitter.” It was about as easy a match as Argentine referee Nestor Pitana is ever going to have to handle. Although there were 32 fouls (Russia 22, Saudi Arabia 10) none were malicious and the two yellows cards issued came late in the game.
It is just one game and it would be unwise to draw conclusions. However, there is a compelling reason to believe that there will actually be more red cards ssued at this World Cup than there were at Brazil 2014.
The 1o red cards in 2014 were the lowest number since Mexico in 1986 when eight players were sent off. Four years later in Italy, the number of red cards doubled then dipped slightly to 15 at USA 1994.
France 1998 experienced a significant bump to 22 sending offs but four years later it dipped again to 17. Germany 2006 set a record that still stands of 28 red cards while South Africa 2010 was 17.
2014′s ten red brought the total number of players sent off in World Cup history to 160.
Cast your mind back to 2014 and remember what a surprise it was to see officials taking a more lenient approach and clearly differentiating between physical but legal play and illegal challenges.
It allowed the game to flow and with it came 171 goals matching the record set in 1998. We are unlikely to see the sort of “reset” we saw four years ago and so it seems very unlikely that we will see the count drop into single figures for the first time in a 64-game tournament.
There is, however, the “unknown” of whether or not the implementation of VAR will impact the then number and color of cards.
Writing in The Telegraph after the first game of the tournament, former referee Keith Hackett suggested that the use of VAR will have an impact on players psychologically because of the constant focus that the cameras will bring.
If that is the case, will it permanently change players’ attitudes or is it simply a case of something they will get used to and then revert to previous behavior?
Interestingly, there was research first released last summer that focused on how VAR might influence the psychology of referees.
The research by Jochim Spitz, of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, focused on how the speed of video replay impacted a referee’s decision and the degree of punishment dished out.
Spitz’s study was published earlier this week in the open access journal of the Psychonomic Society, “Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.”
He found that when situations were replayed in slow motion then referees were more likely to dish out a more severe form of punishment. However, the speed of the replay did not impact the accuracy of the decision.
The study involved 88 referees viewing fouls that officials from UEFA characterized as being worthy of a yellow card.
The accuracy of the decision showed a small improvement from real-time to slow motion – 61% to 63%. However, there was a significant spike in red-cards issued after slow motion replays. The number doubled from 10% to 20%.
Researchers opined that slow motion makes a foul look more serious than in real time.
Spitz’s research seems to have hit a chord as the pronouncement by FIFA on the use of VAR specifically points to not using slow-motion to decide on the severity of a physical challenge.
Spitz also published research in 2016 that showed that top-level professional football referees have enhanced visual perception. This means that a top-class official is better at catching fouls than a less gifted colleague. The research was published in the journal Cognitive Research.
One wonders, what soccer research he has coming up next?
When can VAR be used?
There are four specific types of instances where VAR becomes part of the decision-making process.
The types of decision are when a goal is scored, penalty awards, straight red cards and in the case of mistaken identity.
The referee is always responsible for making the decision and is only overturned if it is shown to “clearly wrong.”
There are also guidelines in place for the referee and the VAR to follow in regards to a video review. The guidelines cover things such as when should “slow motion” be used and how far back a review can go (only to the start of the attacking phase that leads to the incident in question)
FIFA has a very good section on its website explaining how and who will implement the VAR system.
Red card stats at the World Cup Final
The red card was introduced for use at the 1970 World Cup Final but a red card was not shown until 1974. Chile’s Carlos Caszely received a second yellow card after a foul on Berti Vogts and out came the red version.
There were more red cards recorded at the 2006 World Cup Final in Germany 2006 that at any other edition. There were 28 red cards and that number equaled the total number of players sent off in all the first 10 World Cups combined.
At the 1986 tournament, Uruguay’s José Batista was sent off after just 56 seconds for a foul on Scotland’s Gordon Strachan.
On 18 June 1998, five players received their early marching orders and that is the most in a single day of World Cup Final competition.
The greatest number of red cards in one game was at Germany 2006. In a game between Portugal and the Netherlands in the round of 16, there were 16 yellow cards issued along with 4 of the red variety. Few seemed to notice that Portugal won the match 1-0.
One pedantic point is that despite what the narrator says about not having anyone to celebrate with Maniche actually scored in the 23rd minute and the first player was not ordered off until Costinha walked on the stroke of half-time.
