You can only imagine how quickly bosses inside Stockley Park sent the work experience lacky down to the nearest Clinton’s to buy Matheus Cunha a thank you card.
Until the red mist descended on the Wolves forward in the final seconds of extra-time at the Vitality Stadium, when he punched, kicked and then headbutted Bournemouth defender Milos Kerkez, the fiercest spotlight from this remarkable FA Cup tie burned down on the officials and what is believed to be the longest VAR check in English football history.
Only then, after Cunha was given his marching orders and Luis Sinisterra scored the decisive penalty in a shootout that sent Bournemouth into the quarter-final were the match report intros changed and the headlines rewritten.
Before that, it was all about how on earth VAR Timothy Wood needed nearly eight minutes to decide whether Milos Kerkez or Dean Huijsen had doubled Bournemouth’s lead.
The goal itself seemed simple enough. David Brooks swung a corner to the far post and the ball was bundled across the line via touches from both Bournemouth men.
Referee Sam Barrott awarded the goal… and then the wait began.
VAR needed almost eight minutes to rule out Bournemouth’s second goal against Wolves
Milos Kerkez scored from a corner but was eventually adjudged to have been offside
Matheus Cunha stole the headlines after headbutting Kerkez and being shown a straight red
Wood and his assistant VAR Darren England first checked for handball by Kerkez. Then they checked for handball by Huijsen and eventually decided it had come off his shoulder.
Then came the offside check. It took so long the players had to do drills to keep warm.
What made the debacle even more embarrassing is that it came on the first weekend that the brand new semi-automated offsides were in action, a technology that is supposed to make these decisions quicker and more painless.
Midway through the never-ending purgatory, referee Barrott called both captains and managers into a touchline huddle to inform them the technology could not be used and the VAR had resorted to the tried-and-untrusted method of drawing the lines.
PGMOL insisted the system wasn’t broken and that it took so long because of how close and complex the decision was. They pointed everyone to the semi-automated offside explainer published ahead of the weekend that said when there is a marginal call through a busy crowd of bodies, they might have to use the lines instead.
It might not have been broken but it certainly didn’t work.
You can understand their point to an extent because, in fairness, this was a rarity. Semi-automated offsides will, on the whole, speed things up and make things clearer. We’ve seen it work well in the Champions League and the World Cup among other competitions. It’s a much-needed step in the right direction.
But the Premier League and PGMOL chose not to use technology already implemented by FIFA and UEFA in favour of their own version that sticks 30 iPhones under the stadium roof and uses the cameras to track the players and one that has taken so long to get ready they have already delayed its introduction into the Premier League this season.
Cunha also punched and kicked Kerkez as the game headed to its dramatic penalty shootout
The new semi-automated offside technology did not work properly, leading to a lengthy delay
So, for it not to be able to judge a crucial call just three games into its first weekend was the worst possible start.
The fans of both sides made their thoughts on the nonsense clear, going through the full repertoire while they twiddled their thumbs on the south coast: ‘F*** VAR’, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’, ‘This is embarrassing’, ‘What the f***ing hell is this’ and, most brutally, ‘It’s not football anymore.’
Because, as always with VAR, the entire process leaves fans in the dark. No one inside the ground knew what was happening.
The big screens flashed up with ‘checking goal: possible offside’ and then ‘checking goal: possible handball’ but that’s not enough. At the end of it all, poor Barrott had to announce the decision over the stadium PA system and declared: ‘Bournemouth’s number two was in an offside position’. That’s not enough either.
It showed how little everyone thought of process that even the Wolves fans didn’t cheer when Barrott announced Huijsen’s goal had been chalked off.
Even those of us in the press box with the benefit of the replays on screens did not know for certain what was going on. Kerkez’s dad, sat in the next row along, leaned over to see whether it was his son who got the final touch and ask if it was going to get ruled out for offside.
While Howard Webb and co deserve credit for allowing supporters to listen in to the VAR audio after the fact on their Match Officials Mic’d Up show, until football’s lawmakers IFAB allow officials to broadcast them live inside the stadium like cricket or rugby, fans always will be out in the cold.
Throw all the money you like on fancy new gear but if crowds can still stand around for eight minutes with no clue what’s happening, they’re right – it’s really not football anymore.
