VAR, football's embrace of video technology, has caused quite a bit of controversy with its use in the Confederations Cup thus far, with Damien Duff evidently pissed off with it on RTE.
Now that it is here, there is a natural temptation to apply it retrospectively and ponder at how different football might have been.
One of football's greatest philosophers, Arsene Wenger, has done precisely that, upon prompting by the Arsenal website. They asked him to name the three Arsenal game he wished had been refereed under the new system: a canny way of asking him to name the biggest injustices visited upon his Arsenal team since he took over.
Rarely one to turn down the opportunity to complain, while also acting blissfully ignorant of his usual I-didn't-see-it schtick, here's what Wenger have to say.
I would choose Barcelona’s equaliser in the 2006 Champions League final because it was offside, and we were 1-0 up with 30 minutes to go. That’s the trophy I miss here, you know, so that is for me the most important one.
The second one I would choose is the second yellow card for Robin van Persie at Barcelona in 2011, because this was the moment we were qualified against a very strong team, and it was a very difficult decision to accept — it basically killed our chances.
After that maybe I go to a more recent decision — against Bayern Munich when Laurent Koscielny was sent off for a penalty when Lewandowski was offside. That just comes to my mind now but maybe I forget many, many, many, many more.
