A few days ago, in their encounter against Tunisia, the France National Football Team was the victim of a bungled VAR ruling when a French equalizer goal was disallowed by the VAR even after play had resumed following the score.
Today, we saw another dubious VAR decision that resulted in Japan’s second goal in their match against Spain being controversially awarded. This victory against the 2010 World Champions propelled Japan to the top of Group E rankings. At 51 minutes, Doan squared the ball fine across the Spanish goal towards Kaoru Mitoma, who raced across and brilliantly cut the ball back in right from the edge of the touch line into the playing area, only for Ao Tanaka to smash the ball into the net. This was just 3 minutes after Japan scored their first goal to tie the score 1-1.
The Spanish team promptly objected, saying that Mitoma had clipped the ball back in just as the ball had crossed the touch line. This led to a thorough VAR check that examined the crucial moment from various viewpoints many times in order to draw a verdict. After carefully examining the touch line camera, it was ultimately decided to award the goal because it appeared that the “Curvature of the ball” was still over the touch line when Mitoma flicked it back into play.
The Spaniards immediately protested the goal, saying they disagreed with the ruling and thought it was yet another poor VAR choice. To the dismay of the Spanish fans, the referee decided to continue the game and gave the Japanese a 2-1 lead over the former world champions. Spain had earlier in the game scored the game’s opening goal in the 11th minute to establish an early lead in the first half. Spain eventually won 1-0 at the end of the first half.
Following the start of the second half, Doan equalized the score for his team by scoring the game’s first goal for Japan in the 48th minute. What happened after that became a hot topic of discussion three minutes later. Japan was controversially given the goal, and they eventually kept it for the rest of the game, which ended with the whistle and a score of 2-1 in Japan’s favor.
Japan advanced to the top 16 as the victory propelled them to the top of Group E. Spain, who had already advanced to the round of 16, was dropped to second place. Even though the game may have ended, the final score caused a great uproar on social media, with Spanish fans criticizing the VAR decision to allow the Tanaka goal.
Many images and videos from various additional viewpoints were uploaded to the internet, plainly demonstrating the ball clearly hitting outside the line when Mitoma made contact. When Mitoma flicked the ball in just in time, the entire ball was still in play due to the footage from the touchline camera showing that the ball’s curvature was still overlapping with the touch line. As a result, FIFA immediately issued an official statement on Twitter confirming the goal’s legitimacy.
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