PHEW! Thank goodness for the enlightenment of the SFA’s Key Match Incident panel.
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I haven’t slept a wink waiting for the collective wisdom and judgement of these five soccer Solomons following Daizen Maeda’s no-goal decision that would have given Celtic at least a draw with Hibs at Easter Road a week ago.
As you will no doubt recall, Alistair Johnston had chased an Arne Engels pass to the byline before whipping over a low cross which was spilled by keeper Jordan Smith and the Japanese ace pounced to ram the rebound into the roof of the net.
Referee Steven McLean signalled a goal, there was no flag from standside assistant David Roome and Maeda and his team-mates celebrated big-style. The score stood at 2-2, there were 83 minutes on the clock with stoppage-time still to be added on.
Plenty of time to go for a third goal to complete a spirited comeback following a fairly insipid first-half performance in which Josh Campbell, on two occasions, was practically invited to stick the ball behind the exposed Kasper Schmeichel.
Of course, there was no such revival. A perplexing and mystifying decision by VAR official Alan Muir made certain of that.
VAR-CICAL…Alistair Johnston prepares to send over the inviting cross.
NET LOSS…Daizen Maeda fires the ball past grounded Hibs keeper Jordan Smith and his defenders for what looked like Celtic’s second and equalising goal at Easter Road.
This guru of screen technology spotted something that had escaped the attention of everyone else in the vicinity – and millions of viewers dotted throughout the universe.
The ball was over the line before Johnston fired in his cross. Muir was convinced it was illegal. The goal was nullified.
One snag. There was no evidence whatsoever to back up the official’s assertion.
There had been no clear and obvious error. Therefore, no requirement of an interruption from the brainiac of scientific computing watching in front of the multi screens in Clydesdale House in Glasgow.
Without the aid a solitary image of verification, Muir, ill advisably, plunged in to condemn the champions to their second Premiership loss of the campaign.
I wrote here last weekend that neither the VAR official nor the SFA would be in a position to provide irrefutable corroboration to prove the ball had crossed the line.
We had to wait six days before the KMI panel informed us Muir had made an incorrect intervention. The goal should have stood.
I don’t know about you, but I am not sure my old ticker can stand such sensational revelations.
Muir was wrong? Really? What’s next? March follows February?
CHEERS BEFORE TEARS…Daizen Maeda celebrates, Filipe Jota prepares to congratulate his team-mate and referee Steven McLean signals a goal. And then in steps Alan Muir…
Without pictorial evidence, there was only one logical verdict the VAR reviewers could offer.
So far so good? Well, almost. The five-member panel concluded by a 4-1 majority that the goal should have stood.
Remarkably, the collection of perceptive philosophers of the spherical object failed to deliver a unanimous adjudication; there was a dissenting voice, an individual who actually agreed with VAR.
The panellists work under a cloak of anonymity, of course, and we will probably never learn the identity of the lone wolf.
I reckon Willie Collum, commander of the possessors of the silver whistle and red and yellow pieces of cardboard, should explore the reasons for the mutinous voice.
Could he have been:
A: Alan Muir in disguise;
B: A relative of Alan Muir;
C: A season ticket holder for a club situated elsewhere in the country;
D: Someone whose preferred sport is tiddlywinks;
E: A person who requires a guide dog to get around.
You may be able to add one or two of your own suggestions.
TUG OF VAR…Liam Scales and Vaclav Cerny involved in the flashpoint incident at Hampden.
The Easter Road incident presented us with our biggest stooshy since Philippe Clement shrieked he had been scarred for life after the Ibrox club had been denied a penalty-kick at Hampden in mid-December.
The Nosferatu of the touchline, the recent recipient of a P45, was referring to the coming together of Liam Scales and Vaclav Cerny on the 18-yard line in the early moments of extra-time with the score standing at 3-3 in the Premier Sports League Cup Final, eventually won 5-4 on penalty-kicks by Brendan Rodgers’ men.
The aforementioned Collum donned the tackety boots to agree with the bonkers Belgian who may have been just a tad over the top with his barmy assertion the whole of Europe had been discussing the occurrence.
Coincidentally, Muir and Frank Connor were the VAR officials that afternoon when Celtic won their 119th trophy to become the world’s most successful club.
TIME’S UP…Philippe Clement heads for a P45.
Attempting to deflect from the phenomenal achievement of their neighbours across the Clyde, the brown brogue brigade went into overdrive to snatch the headlines.
Tidal waves of guff swept the airwaves for a few days and smelling salts were not required when the KMI eggheads agreed to a man that VAR should have intervened to award a penalty-kick.
Not one among the learned individuals believed Cerny had taken a theatrical dive in an effort to win a spot-kick. No one thought he had given as good as he got as he jostled with Scales for the ball on the edge of the box.
Really? And yet, my friend, we discover there is a renegade who refuses to follow any sort of protocol to insist VAR did not get it monumentally wrong in the capital.
Without a shred of proof, according to Mr X, Muir called it right.
There’s always one oddball, isn’t there?
