How Would Euro 2024 Be Affected By No Technology?

The debate of technology in football is a tiring debate that has been going on for around half a decade now, with the introduction of VAR the debate made massive strands forward to become a more negative one.

The Start Of Technology in Football

If we really wanna be technical with technology in football, we can go back to the 1980s when analysis of games really started to be used and teams and players would watch videos and matches to look at how they and their opponents played, this started a new wave of how football was played and brought in new tactics and ideas because the games could be looked at so differently.

After this technology became more integrated with football, with the next major step being heart rate monitors to test the player’s fitness levels and health, this was followed by sports science in general being a major player in football and helping the players feel and play their best while also keeping them safe.

As you can see, technology is a massive part of football even from the days before tech was a major part of the world and this is why the debate of technology in football is so stupid to me. With the technological improvements that have been around, there is a feeling around football that technology will always be a part of it and this has come with a lot of debate.

There have been some great things that have been used in football that relate to technology but there have also been some that have led to a rift in football between fans and the enjoyment and that is not what football is and it’s not what it should be. UEFA, FA or whoever is in charge of football needs to listen to what the fans want.

The Good

As I said, there have been some good things that technology has brought into football. I could sit and talk for a while about player safety and how technology has helped this. Just recently it was the anniversary of the death of Marc-Vivien Foe, a tragedy that shook the footballing world. Now I’m not going to sit here and say that players’ health issues don’t happen, because even in the Premier League this season we saw a player have a heart attack on the pitch but, what’s changed is, that he survived.

Technology now can save players’ lives and keep their careers going. Another example was with Christain Eriksen, a player who collapsed at the Euros in 2021 and a year later he was playing Premier League football again.

These are miracles that could happen because technology is so advanced and we need to protect our players now more than ever.

Goal Line Technology

This is a big and probably, in my opinion anyway, the best use of technology in the game today. Goal Line Tech was introduced nearly a decade ago and it was one of the first bits of technology in football that was used during the game. Football fans had known about the use of technology behind the scenes, with sports science and tactical analysis and this was improving the game for the better.

But, this was a whole new ballgame because it was used during the match itself, meaning a supposed goal or what could be a goal-line clearance could be chalked off or given and this provided more clarity in the game.

Goal line tech was actually used in 2012 as a system called “Hawkeye”, it was used in 2012 in the Dutch league first and became the new norm in this league. For the rest of Europe and the bigger leagues, UEFA allowed the use of goal-line technology but big leagues, like the Premier League, didn’t start to use it until the 2017/18 season.

The use of goal-line tech has been spoken about for years leading up to the introduction, with the biggest discussions coming after Frank Lampard and England were robbed of a goal against Germany in the 2010 World Cup which led to England being knocked out, which was a very angry time for the nation.

When GLT was finally introduced, football rejoiced in the news and everyone saw this move and change as positive, so what changed with football that made the use of tech so scrutinised?

VAR

The most controversial use of tech the footballing world has ever seen was introduced in the 2018 season with the World Cup and the Champions League being the first competitions to use VAR to, if we all are honest, positive feedback. Obviously, like everything, people at first argued against and said that human errors in football are part of the game and I do agree with this to a certain extent.

With the Euros going on now we have seen VAR be used in a positive light, players like Lukaku who are favourite in the latest odds for Euro 2024 have had multiple goals chalked out over his inability to hold a run and this is a credit to the defenders on the opposing team. If VAR didn’t exist a lot of the main decisions for this tournament would have been ignored and wrong. Football is a sport that moves very fast, it’s hard for referees and players to get everything right. As fans of the game we want football to be quick and to be fun and this is my criticism of VAR, it slows the game down. It’s got to the point where it feels like the referees are scared to get things wrong and don’t want to make big decisions because they know they have the VAR to fall back on. This is mostly true with the Premier League, the most popular and hardest league in the world has the worst referees available and this needs to change.

The Euros and the Technology Surrounding the Tournament

So far during the Euros, the tech has been used really well. A lot of the big decisions are being given correctly and even the in-game decisions are being made strongly with a few exceptions. The new offside system has really helped the flow of the tournament and made the pressure on the refs less drastic which allows them to focus on the task at hand, rather than be worried about what comes after.

If the Euros had no technology during it, some of the biggest decisions and moments would be lost, even in the opening game, we saw Ryan Porteous commit a borderline assault on Ilkay Gundogan which resulted in a red and a penalty. This was missed by the referee and would have been a massive controversial moment in the opening 45 of the tournament, but VAR was there to make sure that the decision was correct.

I think as much as fans give VAR stick, it has improved the game for the better, better refs and more changes to some of the rules will eventually make most football fans happy, but there won’t ever be a time in football where everyone is happy. Someone will always find a critique and something to complain about but I believe that as things improve and the referees learn the systems better and communicate with the fans more, we could see a major improvement.