{"id":760489,"date":"2026-02-12T23:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/760489\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T23:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:06:11","slug":"flick-criticises-var-mess-as-spains-referee-body-admits-technology-failure-in-barca-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/760489\/","title":{"rendered":"Flick criticises VAR \u201cmess\u201d as Spain\u2019s referee body admits technology \u201cfailure\u201d in Bar\u00e7a loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The eight-minute VAR check during <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/share.fromthespot.co.uk\/article\/atletico-madrid-4-0-barcelona-horror-start-and-var-chaos-gives-barca-mountain-to-climb-in-copa-del-rey\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s 4-0 win over Barcelona;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"><strong>Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s 4-0 win over Barcelona<\/strong><\/a><strong> in the Copa del Rey was the result of a \u201cfailure in the modelling of players,\u201d according to Spain\u2019s Technical Committee of Referees.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Barcelona had been dominated throughout the first half at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano but emerged stronger after the break, and thought they\u2019d found a way back into the match when Pau Cubars\u00ed poked home from within a crowded penalty area.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>But an offside check followed, eventually ruling that the goal should be disallowed.<\/p>\n<p>The Comit\u00e9 T\u00e9cnico de \u00c1rbitros, or CTA, issued a statement confirming that the semi-automated offside technology \u201cgenerated a failure in the modelling of players\u201d due to the \u201chigh density of players\u201d inside the box.<\/p>\n<p>The statement explained that VAR officials tried to recalibrate the system before verifying that it \u201cwas not possible\u201d to recover the functionality, ultimately resorting to manually-drawn lines.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The CTA stressed that doing so was \u201cthe established procedure\u201d and resulted in the \u201ccorrect decision\u201d to deny Cubars\u00ed\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n<p>Hansi Flick labelled the delay as \u201ca mess\u201d in his post-match press conference.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cThey have to wait seven minutes? Oh, come on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I see this situation, it was clear [there was] no offside. Maybe they could see something different \u2013 then tell us!<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[There was] no communication. It\u2019s so bad here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The eight-minute VAR check during Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u2019s 4-0 win over Barcelona in the Copa del Rey was the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5312],"tags":[1029,48427,199,223431,1030,2000,299,3849,223430,223429,104,223428,53],"class_list":["post-760489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-barca","tag-barcelona","tag-comite-tecnico-de-arbitros","tag-copa-del-rey","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-failure","tag-flick","tag-riyadh-air-metropolitano","tag-spain","tag-spains-technical-committee-of-referees","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116060172035194603","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}