A VAR without a screen: What happened at the last second in the game between Hertha and Heidenheim

Technology conditions living creatures, just think of jackdaws, starlings and jays. After the outbreak of the so-called cell phone boom, they began, among others, to imitate the ringtones from Nokia, Ericsson and Sony. So good that amateur ornithologists and professional birdwatchers were confused even at the beginning of the millennium. And so from the woods and fields to the Berlin Olympic Stadium, to the 2-1 victory of a surprisingly spectacular Hertha team against the first division team 1. FC Heidenheim – and the magnificent chaos that the game ended in. Because of an obviously technology-conditioned assistant referee, who Heidenheim coach Frank Schmidt will remember as a flesh-and-blood VAR.

How did that happen? In stoppage time, Paul Wanner, who had just emerged from the egg and only temporarily escaped the FC Bayern nest, scored a goal that would have made it 2-2 for Heidenheim (after Stefan Schimmer’s goal in the 89th minute). Or more precisely: first of all meant. Referee Robert Kampka blew his whistle and pointed to the kick-off point, linesman Martin Wilke took a few steps towards the halfway line – both non-verbal signs of a goal that were clearer than the nightingale’s song. Then they changed their minds, and that was also surprising because there are no video referees in the games in the second round of the DFB Cup.

Nevertheless, assistant Wilke contacted his boss late and successfully called for the Heidenheim settlement to be canceled. The cheering of the people of Heidenheim was suffocated, their arms fluttered like wings, they screamed and shouted murder. For a very legitimate reason, for an even more legitimate question: why?

Well, in the said minute of added time there was a scuffle between Hertha defender Marton Dardai and Heidenheimer Schimmer in the penalty area. But firstly, it wasn’t so clear that Schimmer had committed a foul; secondly, the ball had been at the cruising altitude of the hawk vulture. The duel was therefore an absolutely irrelevant incident.

“Actually, none of us should be sitting here right now, we should be in the stadium,” says Heidenheim coach Schmidt

The reason for the disallowance of the goal, which would have canceled out Hertha’s lead thanks to Danny Sherhant (16′) and the brilliant Michaël Cuisance (74′), was explained shortly after the game resumed. As soon as the final whistle was blown, Heidenheim’s coach Frank Schmidt walked towards the referee team and learned something astonishing. It wasn’t even about the aforementioned wrestling duel between Dardai and Schimmer. “At the sixteenth point, there was a push, a push,” reported Schmidt.

The push in question actually happened. If you rewind the recording of the game long enough, you’ll see that Schimmer pushes Dardai to the ground, the referee doesn’t notice it and the linesman initially seems to think he’s not responsible. At least the game and therefore Heidenheim’s attack continued; over a period of time that was once enough for Usain Bolt to run a 100 meter world record in this same stadium. The Heidenheimers used the time for Leonardo Scienza’s cross to Wanner, for Wannner’s goal, which should have meant extra time – and then didn’t count.

Schmidt was stunned. You could still clearly hear that when he arrived in the press room – and after the absolutely necessary congratulations to the Hertha team, who had just played brilliantly in the first half, he confessed to feeling out of place. “Actually, none of us should be sitting here right now, we should be in the stadium. Second half of extra time. Maybe there’s already a penalty shootout. “I don’t know…” he growled. Schmidt credibly assured that he would have accepted the decision if it had been made emotionally and communicated by the linesman. Just like before.

But Assistant Wilke waited and waited. He waited as long as linesmen have waited since the introduction of VAR to report offside decisions, with the motto: If I’m wrong, the Cologne basement will fix it. But then he must have remembered that there is no technology-based lifebelt for referees in the first rounds of the DFB Cup. Later, much later, Schmidt was leaning against a wall in the catacombs, looking frustrated like the Berlin tourist whose wallet they had just stolen on the S-Bahn. Or even horrified by a seemingly dystopian deformation of the players in what was once the most human of all games into a sport in which hybrids are now also used: “There was a video referee, only he was human,” said Schmidt, and found it “madness.” . Whether this violates the spirit of fair play or is even irregular cannot be clarified, at least in terms of sports law. Heidenheim refrained from protesting on Thursday.