Five parallel universes if the VAR had always existed

The 2017-18 season will be the first one in Serie A with technology helping the referee, the technical name is VAR - you probably heard it recently - which stands for video assistant referee. After the first two games, VAR is having a wavy reputation: after the first one it was celebrated as the revolution we've always been waiting for (serendipity: the first penalty decided by VAR was against Juventus), but after the second game many players and journalists criticized it for its excessive use ("not all the contacts in the box are penalties, the referee has to evaluate them" said Gigi Buffon) and the long pauses of the game. 
Regardless the VAR's future, it is difficult to ignore the cold charm of this technology: especially after years and years in which many journalists, managers, and players based their careers criticizing the referees and claiming "What if the ref...". In the history of football there a bunch of episodes linked to referee's mistakes or interpretations that changed forever the legacy of teams and nations. What if the VAR would have existed at the time? How would the world's history been changed forever?. At Nss Sports we have imagined five parallel universes opened by the VAR in the past that revolutionized the beautiful game.

1. La Mano de Dios

The most know and celebrate cheating episode of the history of football would not have existed with the VAR. The Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser rewatched Maradona's goal while the Azteca was roaring at the top of its voice for the miracle that they witnessed, and avoid the goal in the end. Nasser showed the red card to Diego for his protests and world is changed forever. In this parallel universe, we would not witness to the goal of the century scored by Maradona four minutes later, Argentina got knocked out by England that at the end of tournament become champion. Maradona fell in a deep state of depression and withdraws from football, Napoli would never win the Scudetto in1987 and it ended relegated in Serie B.

2. The foundation of Romanism

In the 1980/81 season, Roma and Juventus are battling for the Scudetto, the direct confrontation game Roma would have been won by Roma if the referee would not cancel for off-side a regular goal scored by central back Maurizio Turone. Juventus won the Scudetto at the end of the year, and the Turone off-side became the corner stone of the Romanism in the sense of hating Juventus and the rhetoric "We have the power against us". With VAR nothing of it would have happened. Thanks to Turone's goal Roma win the Scudetto, and Juventus fall in a deep crisis solved by the selling of the club by the Agnelli. Roma becomes the most winning team of Italy, with the three Champions League and fifteen Scudettos. But at the peak of its success during the 90's a young guy from the academy could not find space in the first team and he switched to Lazio at age 17. That guy is called Francesco Totti and he played all his career for the biancocelesti becoming the captain but never reaching any kind of glory.

3. Byron Moreno and the destiny of FIFA

We are good guys, and we always assume that referees are in good faith when they failed to call a penalty or show a red card. Not in this case thought, not for Byron Moreno and 2002 World Cup. The Ecuadorian referee sent off the tournament the Italian team with an embarrassing performance against South Korea, showing a red card to Totti and canceling a regular golden goal scored by Damiano Tommasi. In the parallel universe where VAR was present, the faith of the game did not change: Byron Moreno rewatched the contact on the screen and  - incredibly - confirm his decisions in order to facilitate South Korea. The corruption scandal was so evident that the tournament was suspended over the pressure of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. A huge system of corruption was discovered and the FIFA was dissolved. Not even a World Cup has been played since Japan and South Korea tournament, just until Qatar paid every Federation to host a new World Cup in 2022.

4. The screams of Didier Drogba

The referee  Tom Henning Øvrebø is known for his strange name and for the performance during 2009's Champions League semifinal between Chelsea and Barcellona when he did not concede four clear penalties to the blues. This game is not famous like the others, but it was a sliding door of the tactical domination of Tiki-taka among the world of football. In that season Guardiola succeeded to gain the triplete and his football paradigm became the standard of the new tactics. In the parallel universe where Øvrebø was forced to whistle those penalties Barcellona did not gain anything and for some reasons, the management decides to fire Guardiola judging his ideas too edgy for a club like Barça. Guardiola leaves football for good and opens a chiringuito in the south of Spain watching kids playing on the sand. Barcellona hires Mourinho that will never have the possibility to act in the best press conference of modern times (Por que?).

5. Gigi Simoni's life and Mark Iuliano

This is probably the most famous Serie A scandal of all time. If VAR was operating 20 years ago, we would probably live in a very different country by now. But a single story caught my attention. On Monday the former Inter manager Gigi Simoni released an interview saying that "It was terrible for me, my career was very influenced by that penalty". Indeed if the VAR corrected the referee probably that Inter would have won the Scudetto with Ronaldo as a striker, but most importantly Gigi Simoni and his calm and reassuring face take the flight and he becomes the Italian most winning manager of recent years, gaining also a WOrld Cup with the Azzurri. Nowadays in 2017, Gigi Simoni is a noble father of Italian football and became responsible for the VAR system in Serie A. Are you happy now Gigi?