Bad pitch, VAR – a negative and a positive for La Liga

FC Barcelona’s game against Valladolid on Saturday night was a very interesting one with Dembele’s goal the only difference. However, the game highlighted a couple of things going wrong with La Liga and also how VAR has proven to be a really great addition to the league.

The Valladolid pitch was a horror during the game, contained gallops, rough patches, terrible terrain and had everything you could describe a bad pitch with. The Barca players who are great passers struggled to play fluid football but somehow it favoured Valladolid’s style which made it look like they did that on purpose.

This is something that should not be tolerated by the Spanish league football federation, the pitch is so bad for a top-flight game and it was later confirmed by La Liga president Javier Tebas who stated that Valladolid could get fined for it. That shows how bad the pitch was.

Barca players reacted to the pitch post-match with Gerard Pique condemning it openly stating “It was a disgrace and increased the chance of injury”, Sergio Busquets said, “the pitch was like a beach.” Even Valladolid’s president said he’d “accept any fine because it was clear the pitch wasn’t in good condition.”

This stuff gives La Liga a bad reputation and seriously needs to be addressed. A pitch of such bad quality should be nowhere near top-flight football, there would be a standard.

The Zorilla wasn’t the only talking point in the game, VAR was also in the spotlight. The technology was introduced to La Liga this season and has already proved very crucial and was the main reason Barca got the win on Saturday. While the game was 1-0, Luis Suarez put the ball in the back of the net but VAR ruled it out for offside. The game continued to be an interesting one and Valladolid got the equaliser on 93 minutes, or they thought they did but the goal was cancelled after VAR saw that Keko the goalscorer was in an offside position.

It was a very tight offside but was the correct decision and it was certain that goal would’ve been given had VAR been absent. It was the main reason Barca went away with 3 points and not one. Some Bizarre decisions have played against Barca in past seasons, the ball that crossed the line against Betis that lost Barca the league in 2016/2017, the one last season too, a couple of offside calls. VAR has proven to be a very good introduction to the World of football and has minimised wrong calls to its barest minimum. Good thing, let’s hope it makes a couple of crucial decisions later on.