While VAR will help solve the most controversial events there is still a long way to go in order to establish honesty and fair play as the new normal in football. We propose 2 solutions to continue improving fairness in the game, fortunately they both can be applied in parallel:
Continue expanding the use of VAR and use our measurement model to find ways to extend its positive impact to more plays during matches.
Encourage players to demonstrate honesty and integrity when they are on the field to decrease the number of dives and the negative impact from them.
Analysis objectives
VAR will be used in the 2018 World Cup in Russia and we celebrate that decision! The use of technology in football is long overdue. It has paid off in other sports, we look forward to seeing it pay off in our beloved sport too. Nevertheless, the scope of VAR could still be too limited when looking at the overall diving practice given that it can only be invoked in particular cases:
Understand the extent of the diving practice in this league.
Understand how much VAR would have helped to keep actions and decisions fair.
Analysis outcomes
Overall results
Found 132 diving events, 59% of which were identified by the Referee. A portion of the rest (34) was identified by a video replay and the rest (20) were inconclusive, meaning replay was not enough to prove or disprove a dive.
Negative impact on matches
The events that were not identified by the referee produced unfair impact on the matches in 15 occasions. There were 11 cards (1 red), 2 goals scored and 2 winner changes (the diver’s team went from losing the game to a tie).
Match breakout
Diving happened in all matches:
But unfair impact was condensed in 6 matches:
The 2 events that changed winners were:
Juventus vs Tottenham
Inconclusive play between Dele Alli and Giorgio Chiellini. Both players end up falling. There’s reasonable doubt about contact being the cause of the fall but video replay is not enough to prove or disprove.
Play leads to a free kick, a goal is scored and Tottenham ties the game 2-2.
VAR could NOT have been invoked in this case.
Real Madrid vs PSG
Toni Kroos gets pulled from behind, then falls to the front. Lack of ballistic continuity given that the pull and the fall go in opposite directions. Toni Kroos falls in archer’s bow pose, one of the characteristic traits of dives.
Play leads to a penalty, a goal is scored and Real Madrid ties the game 1-1.
VAR could have been invoked in this case.
Team breakout
Diving was practiced by all the teams but only half of them produced unfair impact on their matches.
Player breakout
79 players engaged in diving, 80% of them with 1 or 2 dives (counting identified and inconclusive dives), 16 players dived 3 times of more. Disclaimer: Dive count should be weighted against effective play time to enable fair comparison between players.
VAR effectiveness
VAR was not used in these Champions League matches, but had it been used it would have helped analyse only 2 events, equivalent to 4% effectiveness.
Conclusions
While VAR is great effort to contain the negative impact of dishonesty on the field, it will help solve only the most impactful events at the bottom of the funnel. Many other dives causing other types of impact on the game will still go unnoticed.
We propose 2 ways to improve this situation addressing the problem bottom-up and top-down at the same time:
Extend the positive impact from VAR into more events at the bottom of the funnel. The measurement model we propose can help finding ways to improve this technology.
Decrease the number of events at the top of the funnel, in other words, decrease the number of diving events. We hope our #StopDiving effort will help by encourage players to always demonstrate honesty and integrity on the field.
Analysis methodology
Sample dataset
We analysed both legs of these matches (total of 12 matches):
Juventus vs Tottenham
Real Madrid vs PSG
Porto vs Liverpool
Chelsea vs Barcelona
Bayern Munich vs Besiktas
Sevilla vs Manchester United
Metrics
We tracked both quantitative and impact metrics
Quantitative metrics:
Number of dives identified by the referee.
Number of dives not identified by the referee but later identified by a video replay.
Number of possible dives not identified by the referee or by a video replay.
We used the 6 traits to identify dives based on a 2010 study by Paul H. Morris & David Lewis from University of Portsmouth, UK. And we used these rubrics to keep tracking consistent across matches:
Tracked:
Identified by Referee: A player falls to the ground, explicitly asks for a fault and the referee doesn’t concede, no replay needed.
Identified by Video: A player falls to the ground, the referee concedes but through replay at least one of the 6 traits is clearly recognized.
Inconclusive: A player falls to the ground, the referee concedes, there’s reasonable doubt on one of the 6 traits but replay is not good enough to prove or disprove.
Not tracked
Consistent: A player falls to the ground, the referee concedes, there is contact and there’s consistency in nursing the body part exposed to the contact. Non of the other traits is clearly recognized. Do not track even if there’s exaggerated reaction by the falling player.
No replay: A player falls to the ground, the referee concedes but there’s no replay to check for traits.
Header graphic, UEFA Champions League logo and UEFA Champions League brand are property of UEFA.
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