If referees are reluctant to penalize goalkeepers (obviously, they are), now we have the option of VAR replay scanning to set matters aright.

From Atlanta, there was -- almost -- nothing but good news. A glittering evening, a huge, record crowd, lots of good players, and some pretty good soccer.

So George Orwell was right? Words, it seems, are losing their meaning.

How about VAR -- a revolutionary development in refereeing -- how did that fare? Pretty well, I'd say. As it ought to have done -- I mean, who is going to argue with VAR's basic job?

The signs that the 2018 World Cup was not going to be business as usual came early.

Yikes! Here they come again! The set-piece merchants, the soccer commentators who will keep insisting that our sport is all about "set pieces."

If ever there was a tricky soccer situation that was waiting to be solved by VAR, surely it was the problem of goalkeeper movement at penalty kicks.

A good deal of attention has been focused on the functioning of the VAR system during this World Cup. Rightly so, for it represents a revolution in soccer thinking

Last week I made a point: that it was time for the soccer world to take Mexico seriously. And now we have another team that merits the same attention: England.

The Mexicans have been very, very patient. Far too patient, I think, in trying to establish their right to belong up there with the top soccer countries.

There are problems with the VAR system that FIFA has decided to introduce at the World Cup. That decision itself is quite likely the biggest of the problems.

For some decades now, I have been asking referees -- at all levels -- a certain question. At least one hundred referees, I'd say, have given me an answer to this question:

It was not to be, was it? Too many surreally bad things happened to Liverpool in Kiev. Surely some curse was at work here making sure that Liverpool and its fans would have to bear yet another burden of tragedy and gloom.

Some assumptions are necessary here, before I get to my main point. Assumption No. 1: that, a few weeks back, a new president of U.S. Soccer was elected.

The oddities that surround VAR decisions continue to baffle. Last Wednesday's decision to nix Atlanta's early goal against Kansas City, for example.