In another effort to reduce the time spent on reviews, VAR will now immediately stop play and send immediate warnings to the touchline officials for obvious, immediately detectable offside decisions. This differs from past arrangements that allowed play to resume after a foul, only stopping the action afterwards when a notable event such as a goal or penalty occurred.
Holzmüller says his team is confident improvements in the accuracy of the VAR system will allow the correct call to be made more often, even in particularly nuanced decisions such as “when only one toe is offside”.
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While the vast majority of offside plays can be seen by watching delayed broadcasts on video replays, a handful of fouls (or fouls) occur at the precise moment between video frames. Despite the rarity of this problem, FIFA is ready to address it: Holzmüller says a combination of 3D scans and ball-tracking data – which can produce higher-resolution video than 60 frames per second by positioning 500 times per second – will complement the video footage to provide the most complete image possible.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of digital twin technology is the ‘3D goalkeeper view’ within VAR. This visualizer can show the goalkeeper’s point of view and use the system’s digital inputs to determine whether an offside attacking player has interfered with the goalkeeper. This interference has long been illegal in soccer, but the number of players and the size of the field make it difficult to make an accurate call.
Hu notes the wide range of possible uses of digital twin technologies in sports, from managing applications like these to athlete health and performance. As models become more powerful and computational costs decrease, they will only get better.
It’s fair to wonder if the juice is really worth the squeeze to get an inch or two of resolution on some rare calls. Holzmüller readily accepts these improvements, and all the technical and financial work that comes with them can change only a few calls throughout the entire tournament. From FIFA’s point of view, when it comes to the world’s biggest sporting event, there is no questioning its value.
“We have to bring the best technology to the World Cup,” he says. “That’s what we’re aiming for.”
This story appeared first wired.com
