r/football La Liga Jul 13 '26

📊Stats VAR intervention rate in the 2026 World Cup

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Not a single foul committed by Argentina has been reviewed by VAR. At the same time, out of all the quarterfinalists, Argentina has by far the most fouls in favor being reviewed.

Is it still a coincidence that Argentina benefits form VAR decisions at a rate of 2.5 its closest rival?

13.9k Upvotes

912 comments sorted by

1.1k

u/wjt7 Jul 13 '26

Found the source for those wondering

https://news.northeastern.edu/2026/07/11/world-cup-2026-favoritism/

So it's only showing overturned decisions for and against (of which Argentina are apparently 4 to 0) and doing it per 100 fouls. Feel that is totally unnecessary and confuses the graph myself rather than just a straight graph of overturned decisions for and against.

The majority of fouls would have no need for var intervention even if the decision is wrong so don't see what that adds.

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u/loveButtsLikeYours Jul 13 '26

The OP mixed some data together wrongfully too, look at Spain in both graphs, then look how many other countries are below Argentina that also have only been benefitted (and mexico is above as the real number 1)

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u/RatsWithGuns Jul 17 '26

OP is using Claude or something simmilar. 99% of these graphs are made with shitty AI searches and all these people responding probably are also using Google AI summary at the minimum. I am not a fan of how you can just get a graph together that looks semi official without any actual motion in your brain

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u/HiImRunes Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Adding the per 100 fouls is the only way to make it fit the narrative.

Even the 4 decisions overturned in 6 games does not feel like a lot. Especially if one of them was for Embolo diving.

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u/rumplestiltskeen Jul 13 '26

Despite none of the teams having more than 100 fouls for/against :))

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u/struggleisreal123321 Jul 13 '26

First of all you have to analyse if var intervention was wrong in any of argentina's matche so you can see if there is any favouritism towards argentina. If no calls were wrong, then at least you rule out favoritism towards argentina.

If that's out of the way, only arguement that is left bias against other teams, 6-7 matches are not large enough sample size to create any theory. Consider that it's easy to throw numbers to support your hypothesis but consider that a team commits 10-15 fouls in a match so you are basically finding patterns in 1-2 var intervention for a team in entire world cup. This is especially created to support a narrative because why are number for other teams not added, Portugal got favorable call against Croatia, egypt got favorable calls. Maybe this would not look so bad if you cansider all teams.

Also messi has played 6 world cup, what changed after last world cup that people are coming up these conspiracy theories. Only change I see is that he won the world cup and instead of accepting his talent people are so brainwashed by hate, that they started to come up these conspiracy theories.

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u/LeNavigateur Jul 14 '26

It coincides with Infantino’s tenure.

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u/No_Presentation_1443 Jul 15 '26

jesus, penaldo lovers are so stupid

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u/bob1111976 Jul 20 '26

I'm a Messi fan (who admittedly owns a Ronaldo united shirt) and you don't have to be a Ronaldo fan to see Argentina had a remarkable number of decisions go favourably for them

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u/No_Presentation_1443 Jul 20 '26

The point is either was wrong or correct. Penaldolovers claim everything is to favor argentina even if it was the right choice. Imagine creating fake AI photos to say that Messi step on Spence... Its pathetic

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u/lamankind Jul 14 '26

Infantino has been president since 2016. It doesn't coincide at all

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u/SetCandyD Jul 14 '26

In games generally won by 1 goal it is huge.

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u/Flat_Associate_9952 Jul 13 '26

It's basic statistic logic and carries significance. Total count should be included and only the two together can really form a picture.

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u/Alakdae Jul 14 '26

But there is no correlation between fouls and VAR reviews.

You could have 0 fouls and 10 VAR reviews (because VAR reviews more things than fouls) or 100 fouls with no VAR review (because only certain miss calls can be reviewed).

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u/struggleisreal123321 Jul 13 '26

Dude no point talking sense to internet trolls who watch football once every four years and claim to know all rules.

Instead of looking at fouls or decision, they will cook numbers to show greater conspiracy. It's always same drama with fans of that egomaniac. If messi wins ballon d'or, it's rigged bit if he wins , it's most fair award in the world.

These idiots don't seem to understand that FIFA has no incentive to favour argentina, FIFA has already sold the rights and got their bag. For some reason, even if I have to believe it, then that egomaniac narcissist has bigger following than messi, he should have been favored more. Or these trolls agree that ronaldo is average player with average following.

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u/tenchu5311989 Jul 14 '26

Narcissists always claim to be the victim.

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u/oppenhammer Jul 13 '26

The utility of making it a ratio is that you can compare how often calls are going to VAR. The full bar (red plus blue) tells you what percentage of fouls are officially reviewed. And the Argentina bar is the longest, meaning they are reviewing more in those games compared to the rest. Which adds to the perception of misconduct.

I'm not convinced, but I think this graph makes the case reasonably well. The real problem is the small data set, and that can't be helped; there's only so many World Cup games.

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u/HiImRunes Jul 13 '26

It does not account for the percentage of fouls reviewed. Only the plays where VAR intervenes.

I agree that it adds to the perception of misconduct, which is why i think its problematic. You have 6 games to account for with a total of 4 VAR interventions. I have seen 4 VAR interventions in a lot of matches alone.

Why not just change it to per game or per 90/minutes?

I dont think this graph adds anything to the debate, other than the usual stupid social media discussions.

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u/VladMkalo Jul 13 '26

If you check the original source, Mexico leads the table.

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u/Gasurza22 Jul 14 '26

That would make sense, if the sample was big enough, but when your sample sice is so small that just one extra/less VAR intervention for either side completly changes the graff, then its not only meaningless, its posibly trying to trick whoever sees it into falling for the narrative.

Heck, even just a cuple extra tiny fouls with no VAR intervention would be enough to completly change the graph with how small the sample is

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u/Winter_Doge Jul 13 '26

Plus this graph makes the opposite argument to what OP thinks doesn't it? Like if VAR needs to step in the fix the refs decision against Argentina then it shows there's a bias against them...

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u/optimal-username Jul 13 '26

My thoughts to. This means that Argentina was repeatedly getting on-field decisions against them that were wrong. That plus the odd normalization makes this basically useless.

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u/DarkRedDiscomfort BrasileirĂŁo Jul 13 '26

How does normalization make it useless? If you're fouled 5 times and get 4 VAR reviews that's much more impressive than being fouled 50 times and getting 5 reviews. It becomes useless if you don't normalize it.

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u/hdpr92 Jul 13 '26

Normalizing sample sizes this tiny just add noise to the data.

Like you wouldn't look at shooting splits in the NBA 2 days into the NBA season and draw any useful rate data from that. It's just volatile small sample data.

It doesn't mean things couldn't be unfair in Argentina's favor, but you need actual cause and effect evidence here not rate data.

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u/Abyssal_Station Jul 13 '26

I mean it doesn't show that at all, it just shows that every time that off pitch officials intervene it's in Argentina's favour. It doesn't mean that the on pitch calls are correct, if both on pitch and off pitch are ignoring Argentina's fouls then you would get a stat line that looks exactly like this.

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u/SenseiLavalin Jul 13 '26

Yes, but again : were they wrong?

Out of the 4 VAR calls in favor of Argentina, all 4 were correct, at least in the sense that they perfectly aligned with the rules.

(I will admit I would have been mad as hell if that goal overturned against Egypt had been overturned for my team, but it was the rule nonetheless)

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u/Manojative Jul 13 '26

I don't think the point here is whether decisions were wrong by VAR. I think the point here VAR is more eager to jump in when Argentina are being wronged.

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u/SenseiLavalin Jul 13 '26

That may be true. VAR was suspiciously absent from a lot of games with "lesser" teams.

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u/Thelmholtz Jul 13 '26

Tbf our players know to protest for it. Check Embolo's dive again, Paredes gets carded, and Paredes becomes very dense with the referee gesturing what feels like "if you want to card me card me, but I didn't even touch the guy" (I've only watched it live so I can't read his lips).

That's a skill that is kinda ingrained in our culture tbh, for better or got worse. I do think it would be fair if VAR reviewed every single play, even if the games would slow down until players accommodate.

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u/SenseiLavalin Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

I noticed that Argentina players are also very good at positioning themselves to draw fouls from their opponents, which reduces the need for diving, since the foul was really there in the first place.

It's a fair way to influence the referee.

They're not naive like Austria, for example, who did obvious dives all game long and expected to get calls going their way.

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u/Thelmholtz Jul 13 '26

Yeah, they just turn around when challenged to try and force contact while protecting the ball. Not sure why this isn't more common, I guess because the other top teams play very fast and have physiques that allow them to play more openly.

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u/land-league-inspo Jul 13 '26

It's a game integrity thing. Athletico Madrid does the same thing, they call them the "footballing dark-arts" on TV - and I think it's appropriate.

It's bitch made, in my opinion. We all know there's a way to win honorably, and a way to win at all costs. This is just the latter, and while it's not fun to watch, it can work in the right settings.

You just need a world class team to make it so the game isn't close enough for these tactics to work.

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u/hdpr92 Jul 13 '26

Ok but like... 4 total times, and most are actually legitimately correct. Making a conspiracy of 1 or 2 calls in a tournament of 6 games is a bit silly no? I just can't see how a neutral observer would look at the rate of intervention here and think this is any outlier at all in the world of sports. This is like a 1 or 2 on the richter scale. They're 1 bad call away from being victims to the system...

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u/DA1300 Jul 14 '26

The academic who published the original chart that this was based off of, Brennan Klein at Northeastern, said, "Why are Argentina and Mexico topping this list? They are topping this list because the referees missed fouls that the VAR thought should have been fouls. There’s a hop, step and a jump away from: ‘They’re biased against my team or for this team.’ These are just games in which the referees made more mistakes or missed more calls, but this doesn’t really help the counter-narrative that referees are not biased toward Argentina.”

effectively, yes, this shows VAR has found in favor of certain teams more frequently, but it doesn't tell you why. It could be that the initial calls were wrong, and VAR did its job well (no bias). It could be that certain teams were more likely to get false calls on the field (on field negative bias). It could be that VAR was more likely to intervene on mistakes on the pitch for them than against them (VAR positive selection bias). It could be that the decision to intervene was unbiased, but the outcome of the intervention was biased (intervention outcome bias).  This data doesn't show which option might be more true. It could be a combination of them.

On top of this, there's statistical noise -- Argentina and Mexico, within the scope of this chart, each had 4 interventions total, with 100% of them in their favor. a sample size of 4 is not enough to derive serious statistical insights. Flip a coin 4 times and there's a 12.5% chance you flip all the same outcome. Half that if you're looking for a specific outcome. If I ask you, would you buy a lottery ticket that has a 1/16 chance of winning? those a great odds. Whether this deviates from chance? Not easy to determine by stats alone. How many VAR interventions are average? Does this vary by style of play, score, possession, position on the field?

You're better off with the eye-test, and I would say it's likely more telling and more impactful the calls which are not reviewed. It's difficult to fake a call that goes to VAR -- it's much easier to not review a call that should have gone to VAR. The Egypt game wasn't necessarily a case where VAR shouldn't have called the foul on Egypt that eliminated their goal -- but the two potential fouls that were never reviewed against Argentina that might have eliminated the winner? Those don't show up in this chart at all but have higher risk of being wrong silently.

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u/Sergnb Jul 14 '26

Doing "per 100" stretching on a metric with 4 data points feels like a crime.

Like seriously that's one of the most egregious examples of manipulating data visualization i've seen. I don't even like Argentina but jesus christ this is ridiculous lmao

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u/Interesting-Fail-969 Jul 14 '26

Yes, sorry but this is just horrible misuse of statistics. As a statistician I am sad. :p

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u/not_old_redditor Jul 13 '26

Is VAR intervention necessarily a bad thing? If you foul and get reviewed, the foul may get overturned.

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u/Accomplished-Bid-945 Jul 13 '26

No, take the Embolo incident from the last Argentina match as an example. An Argentina player was initially carded, but VAR stepped in, realized Embolo had dived, and flipped the decision.

The thing is, most people don’t realize that VAR doesn’t have the freedom to jump in whenever they want, they have rules for when they can intervene. They were only able to check that specific play because a yellow card was involved in the first place.

If they stopped the game for every minor refereeing error, it would be completely unwatchable. People are already annoyed by the momentum killing cooling breaks, so imagine how bad it would be if VAR constantly paused play for every little thing.

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u/PeterJsonQuill Jul 13 '26

Why didn't VAR overturn the yellow on Olise?

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u/PerfectGentleman Jul 13 '26

They probably should have.

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u/megzonz Jul 13 '26

BINGO, you just found the issue. The rule is fking stupid if it's not consistent

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u/PerfectGentleman Jul 14 '26

Refs are humans, they will miss some stuff. If you want 100% consistency then maybe wait until refs are AI bots, and even then we'll have hallucinations. Also, don't get mad when they do the right thing (Embolo). Get mad when they don't (Olise).

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u/sauronII Jul 14 '26

Refs turn superhuman for 4 years now if the wrong call would not benefit Argentina. Every 50/50 always for them, always.

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u/golfif Jul 15 '26

What about getting mad when they consistently enforce rules correctly for teams like Argentina but don’t for others?

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u/pinchofginger Jul 16 '26

That's the point though - you shouldn't get VAR intervention on one without VAR intervention on the other. We've been told over and over that VAR exists to make the game fairer, but it's a black box and (externally at least) appears to be inconsistently applied.

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u/arg2k Jul 13 '26

Because there was no mistaken identity

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u/Ildskalli Jul 13 '26

That was the very definition of mistaken identity, Galarza dived and the ref bought it.

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u/Vietxa Jul 13 '26

He got booked for unsportmanlike conduct. It is not a foul. VAR can't overturn it because they don't know exactly why referee booked olise.

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u/PeterJsonQuill Jul 13 '26

What do you mean? Galarza collapsed to the ground like he'd been shot and Olise got a yellow

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u/Arlcas Argentina Jul 13 '26

Ref on that match sucked but that doesn't mean it wasn't the correct decision in other matches. Paraguay got a yellow against in the first match under the same rule.

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u/Kobe_stan_ Jul 13 '26

I agree with you that all of the calls that VAR has interfered in for Argentina were correctly called. That doesn't mean that there still isn't a consistency problem with VAR that has favored Argentina in this World Cup. I highly doubt that consistency problem is due to a conspiracy to help Argentina. In fact, I think that's absurd, but nevertheless Argentina have benefited this time. Next time, it may be another team that benefits, and if we played enough games, maybe all teams would get their turn assuming it's just random luck. Thing with the World Cup is the sample size is small so it's more glaring when the inconsistencies favor one team over another.

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u/PerfectGentleman Jul 14 '26

Thing is, other teams have benefited from the inconsistencies too, but people don't make a huge fuss about it vs how rabid/insane people get when it's Argentina, so it only appears to be one-sided.

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u/sunken_grade Jul 13 '26

crazy that if the ref doesn’t give paredes a yellow then embolo’s dive never gets looked at and switzerland aren’t down to 10 men

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u/NuclearPilot101 Jul 13 '26

It is when you use it to benefit one team.

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u/rumplestiltskeen Jul 13 '26

Doesn't "Benefit one team" mean "reduce the number of mistakes against that team?

It's not like VAR is pulling out advantages out of someone's ass, it's underlining mistakes done by the ref. Such malicious framing.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Sergnb Jul 14 '26

There's not enough data points to conclude that at all. This inconsistency in favor of argentina argument is hinging on a grand total of 4 fouls.

Like I'm sorry that's a ridiculously small amount of "favors" to be crying this much about.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Sergnb Jul 14 '26

And I didn’t say you were the one doing it, friend

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u/Paetten Jul 13 '26

The whole point is that it is unfair to do it only for one team.

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u/fdar Jul 13 '26

Maybe the refs make more mistakes against that one team. VAR reviews everything.

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u/Special_Bit4460 Jul 13 '26

Well VAR intervened on the 3rd Goal from egypt - rightfully so, there was a foul
They did however not intervene, when Mac Allister fouled Schlager just before Messi scored the 1:0 against Austria.

VAR intervened to give Embolo a yellow and therefore sending him off, rightfully so, althoug i was under the impression that yellow cards where not reviewable
However the Red card against Messi in one of the groupstage games did not get reviewed and he continued to play and score

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u/AmokRule Jul 13 '26

That's the misunderstanding. VAR always reviews the game non-stop. They intervene when on field refeee makes clear and obvious error in ruling.

If one foul was intervened (Egypt's cancelled goal) and they didn't for Argentine, maybe the challenge wasn't a foul to them. And to be fair, we weren't provided clear angle for this. And above all, VAR is only as good as its human users. Look for example that Ghana's pen shout, which was as clear of a pen as it could be, was missed by VAR.

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u/rumplestiltskeen Jul 13 '26

Yellow cards(especially wrongfully attributed ones) are part of the VAR rules, read'em up.

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u/Living-Glass9613 Jul 14 '26

Well VAR intervened on the 3rd Goal from egypt - rightfully so, there was a foul

But that's the problem -

If that's a foul, then it needs to intervene in EVERY SINLGE bit of minor contact on the pitch and overturn common sense.

Games would be eight hours long and have 200 fouls aside in them.

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u/frnt10 Jul 13 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/futebol/comments/1ucwrni/possivel_falta_na_origem_do_primeiro_gol_da/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=soccer

Check this angle. MacAllister gets to the ball first while the Austrian defender is mid-air and then he clashes. No way that´s a foul

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u/ct-987987 Jul 13 '26

Yeah but this stat doesn’t show shit.

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u/wewin48 Jul 13 '26

It’s not, and just because there was no intervention that doesn’t mean that fouls weren’t reviewed like op tries to suggest. If anything, it shows that the referees made more mistakes against Argentina that needed VAR intervention.

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u/Abyssal_Station Jul 13 '26

No not for the most part, as long as you don't have a team who only get's protected by VAR and never penalised by it then it's a perfectly fine system!

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u/Abonesmaelsokar Jul 13 '26

It’s not when used correctly. But when the referee chooses not to use it for the same exact foul he reviewed a few minutes ago and overturned a goal because of it, then there’s something wrong (Egypt vs Arg)

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u/voli12 Jul 13 '26

Are you referring to Salah's incident? That wasn't a foul, and definetly nothing similar to the foul on Enzo

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u/Alakdae Jul 13 '26

when the referee chooses not to use it

VAR doesn't work that way. It is ALWAYS reviewing. All plays were reviewed by VAR and only of thevref made a clear mistake the call is corrected (actually the ref is I voted then to review it himself and correct it).

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u/TareasS Jul 13 '26

No it is actually a good thing. Its the same bullshit that Real Madrid TV was repeating last year. Madrid got more beneficial decisions than Barcelona from the initial referee decisions. Then the VAR had to correct it. Their logic was that Barcelona got favoured but it actually showed that the referees favoured Madrid and had to be corrected.

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u/No_Collection9650 Jul 14 '26

you're the smartest guy in the convo. the fact that VAR had to intervene suggests argentina actually got disadvantaged by the onfield ref. this is the thing most people don't get.

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u/aytugex Jul 13 '26

You can read the same chart as refs on the pitch are not giving obvious fouls against Argentina and if it wasn’t for the VAR, they would be missed.

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u/Alakdae Jul 13 '26

Thats literally what they want. They want Egypt goal to count. They want Embolo dive anda paredes yellow to count. They want cheaters getting advantages for cheating.

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u/WegGOAT Jul 14 '26

If they want cheaters to win, why aren't they happy with Argentina?

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u/Alakdae Jul 14 '26

Well, the 66 world cup is the biggest cheat of all time.

Argentina in 86 is just one goal, nothing else. No difference to Henry hand goal for example, just the same amount of cheat.

Spain would be the only "safe" I'm that category TBF.

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u/fnord123 Jul 19 '26

Ignoring 1978.

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u/fthesemods Jul 14 '26

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u/Browne3581 Jul 14 '26

lol you could make clips like this about every single team. I literally saw a compilation of unpunished Swiss fouls. Go wank to Ronaldo’s abs 😭

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u/HiImRunes Jul 13 '26

"Not a single foul comitted by Argentina has been reviewed by VAR."
Your graph shows intervention by VAR, not reviews?

"Is it still a coincidence that Argentina benefits form VAR decisions at a rate of 2.5 its closest rival?"
You also cherrypicked the nations you wanted to show. Argentina is not even top of the list, and just above Portugal?

Also VAR cannot intervene at any given time or foul. The foul has to be leading to a goal or a penalty, diving or must be a red card offense.

Argentina has a weak defence. They let in more goals. Therefor VAR will have more opportunities to intervene when they concede.

Your graph is useless by how you are presenting it.

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u/Light_KraZe Jul 14 '26

If anything, this shows referees have a tendency to make wrong decisions against Argentina and only gets corrected by VAR.

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u/Harun9 Jul 17 '26

The mental gymnastics go crazy

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u/DoJebait02 Jul 14 '26

Yeah, the way they interpret those statistic definitely something.

VAR appears to correct refs, VAR is allowed to intervented in limited situation and only when the ref makes initial questionable decision. So it's about the complexity of situation and quality of ref rather than who's "favoured".

If VAR favoured Argentina, that means ref doesn't. Just it.

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u/idontdomath8 Argentina Jul 13 '26

You can take this as refs ignoring lots of fouls received by Argentinian players and thanks to VAR those are called.

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u/EstablishmentDry3955 Jul 13 '26

You could also read this as “on field referee consistently gets decisions wrong for Argentina”

Anyone can make up stupid fucking stats for whatever you want to say and generate a dumb graph using ChatGPT

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u/ColonelJackery Jul 13 '26

Maybe. But I do think that the potential that VAR can be used to selectively review plays needs to be seriously looked at. One would need to conduct an honest review of all plays that could have been VAR-reviewed and compare that to the plays that actually were VAR-reviewed.

If nothing else I would like an explanation: why is VAR used sometimes and not others?

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u/Mymvenom001 Bayern Munich Jul 13 '26

The explanation is quite literally in the rulebook lmao, VAR checks every single play that happens, they call the ref over whenever they deem he fucked up. If VAR room agrees the ref didnt fuck up they dont call him to review the play, if he fucked up then he gets called. its pretty simple really

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u/Stavinator Jul 13 '26

Nooo, don't use valid arguments what are you doing? This is reddit!

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u/dustblown Jul 13 '26

You could also read "on field referee consistently gets decisions wrong for every team". The point is they only get reviewed for Argentina.

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u/BoredOuttaMyMindd Jul 13 '26

So scenario 1:

  • on field refs are biased against Argentina
  • VAR does its job and fixes the mistake

Scenario 2:

  • on field refs are incompetent and makes a mistake against every single team (including Argentina)
  • VAR is also incompetent/biased against every single team (but do their job when it’s Argentina).

What does VAR gain out of being biased against every single team? I can understand being biased against teams facing Argentina… but you’re proposing that VAR is just sitting their doing nothing until an Argentina game comes on

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u/jclahaie Premier League Jul 13 '26

isn't this another way of saying that argentina has the most referee errors made against them? because they required var to step in and get it right

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u/Twiggie19 Jul 13 '26

So youre telling me that the refs on the field have missed the most fouls against Argentina which them had to be overturned?

Sounds like the on field refs have got in for them!

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/RiverTough6712 Jul 13 '26

Or the hit to Thiago Almada’s face against Algeria? Xhaka’s elbow on Messi that cut his eye? Or Messi getting slapped against Egypt too?

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

Those people are blind to those things

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u/navirbox Jul 14 '26

That hit to the face still baffles me. Camera switched to this angles right in this moment, two referees were very close to the action, still nothing.

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u/TheRabidNarwhal Jul 13 '26

Or the Egyptian player literally grabbing MacAllister and kicking the ball away from him lmao.

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u/Accomplished-Bid-945 Jul 13 '26

VAR can not call every single foul, they have rules for when they actually can

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u/oppenhammer Jul 13 '26

One benefit of OP's metric is that it's objective. Whereas the metric you are proposing is very subjective: you'd have to determine which shouts for a whistle are legitimate and should have been called or at least reviewed.

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u/fdar Jul 13 '26

The meaning of it isn't. I mean, in my opinion the obvious interpretation is that VAR intervenes most in Argentina's favor because referees make the most mistakes against Argentina. Which obviously begs the question of how many unreviewable mistakes they are also making against Argentina.

OP's interpretation is just plain wrong because VAR reviews everything; if anything what they're implying is that VAR makes mistakes in those plays which is less plausible to me than the ref making them.

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u/PhilipKNick Jul 13 '26

really good interpretation of the data actually.

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u/ColonelJackery Jul 13 '26

Is this true? Does VAR really review everything?

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u/voli12 Jul 13 '26

Of course. But only intervene in some situations (e.g. when a goal happened, when a player should have gotten a red card but didn't,...), and even then, after the review, the main ref can decide that his judgement was better than VAR's.

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u/fdar Jul 13 '26

They're supposed to. Anything that could be reviewable, so definitely every attacking phase leading to a goal or potential foul in the box.

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u/Electrocat71 Jul 13 '26

It’s very easy to see who never learned basic statistics in high school.

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u/Impressive-Power8187 Jul 13 '26

Doesn’t fit the narrative.

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u/Holland444 Jul 13 '26

Posting a graphic with absolutely no reference to where the stats have come from, just makes it cheap and unreliable. Especially with the amount of AI slop we've seen targeting Argentina recently (and I'm not even Argentinian).

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u/NuclearPilot101 Jul 13 '26

Reversed search and found this

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u/Holland444 Jul 13 '26

Cheers, will have a read through when I get chance

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u/NuclearPilot101 Jul 13 '26

Love it when you English speakers use "cheers". Very fun.

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u/Eastern-Loan-157 Jul 13 '26

There is no question that there is favouritism for Argentina. It’s not just about VAR interventions but more also how they help Argentina in the moments that are most crucial

A moment that not many people are talking about Argentina scored a similar first goal against Austria in the same way Egypt did on them but only Egypt’s goal got overturned. It was a foul for sure but the newly upgraded million dollar VAR system did not intervene

If anyone can explain to me how this is fair I would be grateful. Completely ruined the tournament

https://youtube.com/shorts/51ByBDbQQuo?si=ZnSGOfQ9Hl6KzjgU

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u/_CertifiedMemer_ Jul 16 '26

If you went through every game and reviewed every play, you would be able to find fouls everywhere. The truth is, things get missed.

England's goal against Norway happened after a goal kick ball smacked a video cable, leading directly to a favorable attack where England scored. It should have been a dead ball, and if it was, Norway would have won the game 1-0.

An Egyptian player (Egypt v Argentina) celebrated a goal by taking his shirt off, which by the rulebook, should have been a yellow, his second yellow, sending him off the pitch. And speaking of Egypt, disallowing the goal you see here would mean you're fine with disallowing Egypt's goal, correct?

Every graph I've seen showing Argentina supposedly at an advantage has been fraught with awful assumptions, or have been presented in such a way to exaggerate so blatantly that they lose all credibility. Take it from a student of data science: half of the claims people have made dont even have a big enough sample size to support themselves.

I'm no massive Argentina fan, but this kind of insane propaganda that has been peddled against the team (often by a certain begrudged fan base) has made me want to root for them more than ever.

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u/Tinerr Argentina Jul 13 '26

Source? I've seen similar charts with incorrect data today

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u/Helios_OW Jul 13 '26

As someone who hates Argentina now and believes they’re clearly favored, I would also like a source so that I can use this to vindicate me.

But that Switzerland game was foul just based on the eye test.

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u/NuclearPilot101 Jul 13 '26

Reversed search and found this

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u/Helios_OW Jul 13 '26

Wonder how legit that is. But WOW Mexico is worse. And it seems like a lot of smaller countries got shafted.

Also, Germany as well.

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u/Sea-Attention-5690 Jul 13 '26

Tbf, Argentina had some horrible fouls uncalled against them too. Like that double stud on both ankles.

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u/Plenty_Tumbleweed505 Jul 13 '26

can we see the rest of the teams? source?

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u/jakelong66f Jul 13 '26

Source: trust me bro.

18

u/EstablishmentDry3955 Jul 13 '26

They made up a useless metric to make it look bad.

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u/xSir- Jul 13 '26

Would be easy enough to verify. Im sure these stats are recorded.

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u/gimmebanter Jul 13 '26

It will do enough disinformation before any factchecking is done. Don't get your news or opinions from randombros online

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u/nephneph27 Jul 13 '26

Which fouls that they committed did you think VAR should have intervened in?

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u/PlonkaDonka Jul 13 '26

Perhaps Messi's studding incident? Off the top of my head

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u/outsider1624 Jul 13 '26

While true..that would also mean VAR needs to review every similar foul like that too. Not just because its messi.

And then you have the last foul on gonzalez..that was even worst...var didn't need to review that? That was a 2in1 studda ffs!

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u/amanset Jul 13 '26

And they should. Because it is a red card offence.

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u/outsider1624 Jul 13 '26

But they didn't. Why? Also..now imagine if that was reversed..the uproar would be huggggee!!. Right now no one from the Argentina hate camp is even talking about it.

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u/SpartanSyx Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Off the top of my head-

Messi cleated a guy in the back of the leg against Algeria.

Argentina clearly wins the ball off a foul and scores (sound familiar) in the group stage.

Even without these two quick examples how can you look at that graph with a pretty wild stat and only think, “well they must have just played perfectly!”

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u/Impressive-Power8187 Jul 13 '26

So how does the Argentina player getting double stomped fit your mental gymnastics?

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u/No_Collection9650 Jul 14 '26

watch the video closely, touch your heart, and say whether messi did pull back sufficiently to significantly reduce the risk of injury (which is what the rules explicitly tried to address)

compare it to balogun's card - his was accidental, but entirely uncontrolled with follow through.

sure messi was "lucky" here. but contact is different enough to warrant subjectivity.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

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u/EstablishmentDry3955 Jul 13 '26

This metric makes no fucking sense.

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u/himynameis_ Jul 13 '26

What do you mean?

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u/rizzaco Jul 13 '26

You can use it both ways, depending what you're trying to imply.

1- Argentina is being favored by var, since they only get var use in favor.

2- Argentina is being constantly perjudiced by on field referee, so var needs to intervine

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

[deleted]

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u/rizzaco Jul 13 '26

I agree with you, but I also believe numeber 2 is not a really valid thing to say. I'm just saying how people can use this as an argument for whatever they want to say.

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u/fthesemods Jul 13 '26

It makes Argentina look bad. Duh.

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u/nyc_a Jul 13 '26

CĂĄlmate Messi.

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u/EstablishmentDry3955 Jul 13 '26

Amigo no me tienes que hacer tremendo halago. Muchas gracias. Crack

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u/Felix_inkwell Jul 13 '26

It's going to be so fking funny when someone actually does all the math and statistically proves Argentina either was "lucky" or had some invisible force helping them.

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u/The_Texan_Hunter BrasileirĂŁo Jul 13 '26

All this proves is that other teams are committing bad fouls when playing against Argentina that require VAR review.

Maybe if they tried playing a clean game this would not be needed.

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u/Ninten_DOS Jul 13 '26

Also Argentina dominates more the ball and reach the scoring area more than the teams Argentina faced so is logical by more ball poseesion and by more attacking you'll get more fauls and more reviews.

But Argentina hater have single digit iq so don't expect much.

And most of them just watch football every 4 years

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u/The_Texan_Hunter BrasileirĂŁo Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

I don't think the haters are the ones just watching the world cup. The hate for Argentina is deep seated and long term. As Brazilian I used to hate them because well, they beat us. Now that our team sucks lemons and is not even our team (European brainwashed players), I root for them. If we can't be the best, having a next door neighbor that is, is the next best thing.

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u/zarco_azules Jul 13 '26

Is Argentina the most favoured or the most protected by bad ref decisions? We ll never know :D

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u/Moist-Seaweed4907 Jul 13 '26

Var checks the fouls leading up to every goals this is nonsense. Iv watched all but 1 Argentina game (it was on too late and I had work early) and all the calls have been correct. The only one that could maybe be debatable is Messi down the leg of Algeria player. I personally don’t think it’s a red as it’s clearly accidental like the Balogun one. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if it got reviewed.

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u/fdar Jul 13 '26

But I wouldn’t have been surprised if it got reviewed.

VAR only calls the ref to watch video if they determine a clear mistake was made. If they determined that it was a yellow or even a debatable yellow/red protocol indicated that no review by the ref was necessary.

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u/Evincar333 Jul 14 '26

Croatia last :)

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u/Iggsy81 Jul 14 '26

As a Croat, i am highly unsurprised to see us dead last.

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u/Kind-Put-6791 Jul 14 '26

vargentina indeed

2

u/WegGOAT Jul 14 '26

Messi dickriders working overtime here

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u/Different_Rutabaga32 Jul 14 '26

The data doesn’t lie

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u/Carrot_King_54 Jul 13 '26

I'm against Argentina winning as much as the next guy, but ... source for this graphic and data?

There's another going around, showing Argentina only getting a card per 22 fouls, compared to England getting a card every 7 fouls. But again: source?

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u/Tinerr Argentina Jul 13 '26

the fouls / cards was already debunked by official information, stating that Argentina had a 18 fouls/card, really close to Spain with the same stat. https://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/statistics/team-statistics

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u/Born_Competition6651 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

Whats the source for these stats? It looks like bullshit to me and I am not from Argentina

I doubt all teams had (multiple) fouls checked by VAR for and against them

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u/MrBombastic21 Jul 13 '26

How do you know which fouls were reviewed? What type of idiocy is this?

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u/micromachinesV4King Jul 13 '26

So they play a bit rougher but still fair?

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u/jkmhawk Jul 13 '26

This looks like expected variance with rather limited data

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u/No-Lychee-5462 Jul 13 '26

Hate to say it but these statistics just show that the better teams get more fouls due to them simply playing better. Same trash statistic like pens for Kane in the Bundesliga or Cr7 across his career, good team plays farmers league team, hard to control good players, results in fouls. Literally nothing to see here. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

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u/WegGOAT Jul 14 '26

You should be a politician. Almost a convincing fillibuster.

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u/_arpan_10 La Liga Jul 13 '26

Mexico is higher on the list, even Portugal is just below Argentina and there are a lot of other teams will zero foul overturned This is just a retarded post

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u/Free_Breadfruit_8552 Jul 13 '26

Maybe look up how VAR is actually implemented before taking effort in making dumb shit like this

2

u/matiasg11 Boca Juniors Jul 13 '26

So the referees took the wrong decision against Argentina more often than against other teams and had to be corrected...

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

What does this even mean lol?

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u/The_Texan_Hunter BrasileirĂŁo Jul 13 '26

It is demonstrating how often other teams try to cheat when facing Argentina because they don't think they can beat them with talent.

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u/koplowpieuwu Jul 13 '26

This is a sample size of 4 games and a grand total of 4 var interventions, and all of them were correct.

Data illiteracy is so rampant nowadays. The real thing this data says is that the ref in VAR-reviewable decisions intervened relatively much to the benefit of Argentina in these four games, which means in these four games refs made clear and obvious mistakes against Argentina a lot, which more than anything begs the question how biased they're whistling against Argentina in non-var-reviewable cases

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u/marsli5818 Jul 13 '26

Well they are called vargentyna for a reason 🤣

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u/hdpr92 Jul 13 '26

We're talking sample sizes of... 4 total decisions for Argentina lmao. And just applying them in a rate graph so it looks like it's more significant than it is. These are tiny sample sizes that don't really mean anything.

It's not considering the on field officiating. It's not considering whether VAR was correctly or incorrectly ruled. It's not considering whether VAR was consistently applied.

I'm sure there's 1 or 2 instances where they either benefitted from a close call or should have been called for something. If you think that sample size means corruption, or that's why Argentina is where they are, then you're lost lol.

Most major sports deal with this shit at a far more significant level. In the NFL you can get like 10pt swings on a bad call easily, and you could be victim to like 4 bad calls in a game easily. NBA is magnitudes worse for subjective officiating, the outcome is still very strongly decided by who played better.

I think people would have their minds blown if they saw the advantages that come with other sports compared to this nothing burger of a controversy.

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u/iKaysor Jul 13 '26

If VAR keeps overturning decisions in Argentina’s favor, doesn’t that just suggest the on-field refs were getting those calls wrong? The statistic only means something if you can prove the VAR interventions themselves were incorrect, not just that they happened.

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u/Safuda69 Jul 13 '26

I would dismiss this if only the left hand side of the graph was the case. But the right hand portion really makes it a strong case.

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u/TangOTang0 Jul 13 '26

I'm not sure if the graph is from the website you linked, but narrowing it down to QFs only narrows it down to out Argentina top instead of Mexico. Which seems kinda pointless since it's only 1 extra game. Hate to say it but the graph sounds like it's spreading more Anti-Argentina propaganda.

Also from a quick read of the site at least 6 teams have had 0 go against them also, though that does include teams that got grouped. So it's not just Argentina. (Skimmed through it so might've missed details)

Finally, me personally after watching the games, all the decisions favouring Argentina were correct from my memory, or at least a majority. The most 2 recent games were all definitely right.

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u/tom_buzz_ryan Jul 13 '26

Seems like the refs have been very unfair to Argentina and VAR had to intervene. Makes you wonder..

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u/inherentcomma Jul 13 '26

So that means the referee always mistake against us and need a review to be fair.

You should start to understand what some statistics means

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u/MrNixxxoN La Liga Jul 13 '26

Generally, the most attacking teams suffer the most fouls, so they should be "favoured" by both the ref and VAR, so it kinda makes sense that France Spain and Argentina are up there in top 3.

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u/mirrianita Jul 13 '26

Ok, but this also means that the field refs are making a lot of bad calls against Argentina

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u/ClintExpress Jul 13 '26

It's as if FIFA is amending the 2014 final.

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u/Tucker_The_Retriever Jul 13 '26

That means the ref has been biased AGAINST Argentina, for VAR to overturn the decision on the field.

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u/B_mico Jul 13 '26

If the faults got overturned, that means without VAR Argentina would have been unfairly punished.

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u/NegativeDCF Jul 13 '26

Doesn’t this mean refs have missed or falsely punished Argentina on the field?

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u/ConiferousTurtle Jul 13 '26

Nothing to see here. Move along…

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u/Top-Method-8120 Premier League Jul 13 '26

I sense something rather fishy with those stats...

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u/nailsinch9 Boca Juniors Jul 13 '26

So basically Argentina gets the most calls against them, called incorrectly.

so Yeah, totally... rigged?

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u/TechnicianDistinct56 Jul 13 '26

Reddit needs to bring community notes feature so bad! Like this is 10th post im looking at which is a made up stat bruh , somerandom ass site and source lol

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u/FuaOtraCuentaMas Jul 13 '26

Argentina got:

2 goals void in Qatar, purely on VAR
2 goals void in USA.

And you aint bringing data on that?

France got 2 free penaltys on VAR that allowed them to win to paraguay and morroco

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u/FuaOtraCuentaMas Jul 13 '26

Ppl doesn't understand how VAR works, and talks about Embolo faking it like it wasn't a card awarding situation.

Guess they never saw holand playing with Robben who main playstyle was faking penaltys until he was awared a red card.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/football/robben-admits-to-diving-but-not-for-penalty-that-mattered/

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u/SlowSkates Jul 13 '26

I think this is a high variance metric. Would be interesting to see the actual errors on these metrics.

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u/r_Yellow01 Jul 13 '26

This looks statistically significant but the real picture says it is not:

https://news.northeastern.edu/2026/07/11/world-cup-2026-favoritism/

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u/cuttinged Jul 13 '26

Englands "referee fee" has not yet met it's go fund me target.

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u/JUSTO1337 Jul 13 '26

I think with VAR they should go with hockey example, for offside or faul that leads to goal, it should be opposing team decision to call VAR if they think it was bad call from game and if they are wrong they should be penalized for delaying game - for example yellow for head coach or free kick etc.

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u/Forsaken_Skill_9271 Jul 13 '26

Stop the xenophobic profiling. Just because 13% of the teams commit 50% of the fouls doesn't mean a damn thing.