If at one point they coincide defenders and detractors of VAR since its implementation in South American football, it is in the excessive delay that the reviews of the plays take.
Games stopped for more than five minutes, tension on the field and in the stands, timid or late goal celebrations and almost absurd exaggerations of the contacts to alert the video referee (mainly by the goalkeepers)… Everything leads to the matches are extended too much since the arrival of the always protagonist VAR.
Consequently, it was nice. the revelation of a Bundesliga referee, the German Deniz Aytekin, of how he did to “disguise” that the VAR I was reviewing a play and so as not to despair the fans in the opening match of the Bundesliga between Eintracht Frankfurt (with ex-River Rafael Santos Borré and Lucas Alario) and Bayern Munich, which ended in a 1-6 win in favor of the Bavarians.
Aytekin’s “trick”, with Upamecano as assistant
“There was a situation at the beginning of the second half in which it was checked if there was a penalty. I called a corner kick and from the VAR they told me to wait, that they had to review a possible foul in the area”explained the referee to the magazine Kickers.
“Me I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t want to affect the development of the match and the atmosphere. So I went to where the players were huddled and I told (Dayot) Upamecano to stop doing what he was doing.”he added.
Upamecano, surprised, replied that he had not done anything. “I know, but I need time,” Aytekin admitted to the Frenchman. Even in the video of the scene, goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is seen – faster than everyone as usual – reassuring the defender, understanding the intention of the referee.
The referee of Turkish descent told this story after a controversy over a long review in the Bayern-Wolfsburg match that ended in the annulment of a goal by Senegalese Sadio Mané -which would have meant 3-0 for the locals- due to a previous offside by German Thomas Müller.
The memory of Messi’s Barcelona
According to Aytekin, reviews in Germany are usually resolved faster than in other leagues. “In other countries, reviews last on average between 15 and 20 seconds longer. But for viewers, a 75-second review feels like an eternity,” said the 1.97-meter giant, also an economist and businessman, and Fondly remembered in Catalonia for his performance in Barcelona 6, PSG 1 of the 2017 Champions League Round of 16an epic comeback by Neymar and Messi after losing 4-0 in the first leg in Paris.
After the Bayern-Wolfsburg, the coach of the Munich team, Julian Nagelsmann, joked saying that the review had taken 5 hours and 34 minutes before it could be determined that there had been offside.
It is seen that neither Aytekin and Nagelsmann knew about what happened recently in the Copa Libertadores, with controversies such as those between River-Vélezwith the 43 repetitions of the hand of MatÃas Suárez that the referee needed, or in Students-Paranaense, with the two VAR interventions that ended up harming Pincha. If they had seen them, they wouldn’t be so worried about what happens to their payments.