VAR

Thursday

Sam McPhail

Is the World Cup ball rigged?

The World Cup’s new ball is the most technologically advanced ever, FIFA tells us. It has a 500Hz motion sensor chip, which lets VAR and analysts figure out precise positioning, speed and even the spin on the ball, for some weird reason. But former England goalkeeper Joe Hart says the Trionda ball is making life harder for goalkeepers trying to save shots. “It’s that kind of shoulder height,” he continued: As soon as [players] are not using the curling technique, as soon as that ball is not spinning, the goalkeepers are struggling.” Hart obviously has lots of experience in the area and was particularly known for his ability to deal with shots around the head and shoulders, but is he right?

ball

Tuesday

Toby Young

The highs – and low lows – of supporting QPR

From our UK edition

At the beginning of the current football season, I thought there was a real chance that QPR would get promoted. We refreshed our squad with some smart recruitment over the summer, brought in a couple of strikers and hired a new manager in the form of Julien Stéphan, who’d steered Rennes to victory in the Coupe de France. The Hoops have been languishing in the second tier of English football for more than ten years and it looked like we might finally escape. I’d even begun to fantasise about launching a campaign to get rid of VAR in the Premier League, where it’s been in use since 2019. Earlier this week, a poll by the Football Supporters’ Association revealed that three-quarters of fans want to scrap it, with 97 per cent saying it hadn’t made watching football more enjoyable.

Thursday

Roger Alton

The strikers giving Southgate a headache

From our UK edition

Poor Gareth Southgate. Having three outstanding finishers is giving him a thumping headache ahead of the European Championship. Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden are thrilling football crowds with their goal-scoring talents in three of the best domestic leagues in the world. Most national team managers would welcome such a golden trio: but for Southgate it is a case of pass the paracetamol. He must wish the quality in his squad was more evenly spread so he didn’t have to keep picking Harry Maguire as the central defender when he has the turning circle of a small ocean-going liner. Kane is the only one of the trio who’s an out-and-out striker; and of the three, City’s Foden is clearly the problem for Southgate.