Fishcake and tennis ball VAR protests, fight for fifth in the Premier League

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Hello! Video Assistant Referees are under siege in Norway. But thanks to replays, TAFC can ask you: what happened next in this clip?

You’ll find out at the bottom of today’s newsletter. In the meantime, coming up:

⛔ Norway’s VAR revolt

🤕 Haaland injury blow

👀 Chelsea to miss top five?

⭐ Why Euro elite want Huijsen

VAR under attack: Norwegian fans stage protests in bid to rid game of review system

VAR — football’s video review system — has opponents in all four corners of the sport, but nowhere is it more beset by open conflict than in the normally placid climes of Scandinavia.

In Sweden, it failed to get through the gates, rejected out of hand by the clubs without being given a chance to win the country over. And in Norway, having gained a foothold, it is fighting a revolt against it, a co-ordinated onslaught in a league of its own.

VAR has enemies, that much is plain. Since Australia’s A-League became the first professional division to introduce it in 2017 (quickly followed by Major League Soccer), it has spread and become commonplace amid a sceptical, suspicious narrative. The complaints are numerous — not accurate enough, too slow, guilty of stripping football of spontaneity — and the Premier League hears them weekly. But, broadly, VAR is part of the furniture.

It came to Norway’s top division, the Eliteserien, two years ago and dramatically fell short of winning hearts and minds. Clubs there are owned by their fans, and many of those fans want VAR ditched. In January, the 32 teams in the top two leagues voted by a 19-13 majority to abandon it. Unfortunately for them, a much wider poll among the Norwegian Football Federation’s (NFF) 450 members swayed towards retaining it, and so they have.

Danny Taylor flew out there for The Athletic to compile this special report, and what he found was a bitter, polarised argument: one side of it with the pitchforks out, the other trying hard to circle the wagons around reviews. And neither is giving in.

Fishcakes, tennis balls, smoke bombs, silence

Initial protests against VAR in Norway were deliberately disruptive: tennis balls, smoke bombs and even fishcakes were thrown from the stands to try and force abandonments (the fishcakes were supposed to attract flocks of seagulls). Pastries were used in one instance, a dig at the perceived “coffee and croissant” culture inside the NFF, as Danny describes it.

Latterly, the movement has evolved. Fans are now refusing to enter stadiums for the first 15 minutes of games (above) or remain silent during that period, creating empty stands, eerie atmospheres and ensuring VAR dominates headlines. It isn’t as if the motivation is partisan. Supporters of sides in good form and bad are on the picket line.

There’s a problem, though. Not everybody in Norway is anti-VAR. Those who support it have initiated counter-initiatives, and Fredrikstad, for instance, have voted in favour of it. A review found that many players and coaches in Norway like VAR — but, understandably, aren’t brave enough to say so in public.

Lise Klaveness, the NFF president, is at the centre of this storm. She has faced accusations that UEFA influenced her to see off the threat to VAR, a claim she denies. “(VAR) has improved a lot,” she told Danny. “In its first season in Norway, it disrupted the game. Since the second half of last season, it has had a very good flow.”

Those defending VAR say the critics of it know they have lost the argument, and are looking for people to lash out at, but the protests don’t look like dying down. And the concern among football’s powerbrokers must be that if this act of resistance succeeds, the militant approach will spread far beyond Norway.

News round-up

Fight for fifth

The Premier League returns this evening, with a shot in the arm for Arsenal and a kick in the delicates for Manchester City.

Let’s start with the good news: Bukayo Saka, who hasn’t kicked a ball since December, is fit again after hamstring surgery. He’s probably returning too late to stop Liverpool’s surge to the title, but Arsenal had zero chance without him. Look out for his comeback against Fulham later.

City, in contrast, have lost Erling Haaland to the ankle injury he suffered in Sunday’s FA Cup win at Bournemouth. It’s concerning enough that the club felt obliged to stress in a statement that he will recover before the season ends. We’ll wait and see if they’re protesting too much.

You wonder how City will ride the blow because the past six months have found them out on so many levels. And by far the biggest pressure point in the Premier League is the scrap for Champions League places — a fight they’re part of and can’t contemplate losing.

By crunching the numbers, above, Opta Stats predict that City will come fourth in the final top 10, with Newcastle United fifth and Chelsea missing out on the Champions League in sixth (that will go down well at Stamford Bridge). But crucially, the calculations were done before Haaland’s setback emerged. Will it change the picture?

Juventus’ recent trading leaves a little to be desired. They flogged Moise Kean to Fiorentina for around £10million ($13m) last summer, only to see him emerge as Serie A’s second top-scorer. They sold Dean Huijsen to Bournemouth for a similar fee, only to see him emerge as Europe’s hottest young centre-back.

Huijsen, 19, is a regular for Bournemouth but the past few weeks have turned a million eyes towards his potential. An international debut for Spain helped, as did his assist for a glorious Lamine Yamal goal (above — the pass is so perfect, his 17-year-old team-mate doesn’t have to break stride). He’s in that sweet spot of having all the defensive attributes a centre-back could ask for, and slick on-the-ball skill, too.

His contract at Bournemouth contains a £50m release clause, and The Athletic’s David Ornstein expects somebody to activate it in the months ahead. Real Madrid rate him, as do Liverpool, Arsenal and Bayern Munich. (It would be quicker to list the clubs who don’t.) Overnight sensations are rare in football, but Huijsen is shaping up to be one.

Around TAFC

Catch a match

Premier League: Arsenal vs Fulham, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Peacock Premium; Wolverhampton Wanderers vs West Ham United, 2.45pm/7.45pm — USA Network, Fubo (both U.S. only); Nottingham Forest vs Manchester United, 3pm/8pm — Peacock Premium/TNT Sports.

Copa del Rey semi-final second leg: Real Madrid (1) vs Real Sociedad (0), 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.

Coppa Italia semi-final first leg: Empoli vs Bologna, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Premier Sports.

Coupe de France: Dunkerque vs Paris Saint-Germain, 3.10pm/8.10pm — Fox Sports, Fubo (U.S. only).

What happened next?

So back to where we started today, and that outswinging corner. It came in the dying embers of a sixth-tier English fixture between Hornchurch and Weston-super-Mare.

Luke Coulson’s punt somehow turned into a 90-yard goal, which I know for a fact he’ll say he meant. It earned him a hat-trick, it wrapped up a 4-2 victory for Weston-super-Mare in added time and it’s the longest finish I’ve ever seen. We reckoned it deserved a hat tip and you can view the whole sequence above.

(Top photo: Daniel Taylor)