To be fair, you don't want to show a 4 minute video review in an 18-minute condensed game. It's the nightmare call for proponents of VAR. It was a dumb thing for Kaka to do, but nobody said we need VAR to hand out red cards for playful hands to the face when the recipient laughs. It also took forever. Kaka did his thing right at the 93 minute turn. The game resumed at almost 98:30. That's 5 and a half minutes of VAR to make a stupid call. They originally announced 4 minutes of extra time, and there was a yellow card delay prior to this so it probably would have ended at 94:30 without this incident and it ended at 99+. Collin, the supposed victim, spent almost 2 minutes arguing over the call against Kaka after the VAR, so all the promises that VAR delays would be offset by shorter arguments were as meritless as I knew they were. Without VAR play resumes in 90 seconds and Kaka doesn't get a very wrong red.
It also took 4 minutes in the Dallas game from they time the scored the goal that was called back before they restarted play. A first half with 3 minutes of announced added time ended at 6 minutes of added time. That's ridiculous in itself but also mean that
we lost 1 minute of play to VAR. The tackle that caused the reversal was probably a foul, but also not the type of play that ever led anyone to say I can't wait for VAR.
VAR does not just waste time, it deletes actual game time because not all the time it wastes is added back in.
So all the promises, assurances, and wishcasting that somehow VAR in soccer would be different from every VAR in every sport in the world were as wrongheaded as
Tom in Fairfield CT and I said they would be.
