In the post-match show which aired in India, “Football Extraaa”, former French international turned football pundit, Patrice Evra said, “Probably the man in the VAR room was Stevie Wonder”. He aimed this comment at the very controversial VAR incident that happened in the 69th minute of the group stage match between France and the Netherlands. After receiving the ball on the edge of France’s box, the 21-year-old Dutch international, Xavi Simmons hit a low shot into the bottom-right corner.
At first, the goal was given but was later ruled out for offside. Unbeknownst to this verdict, the men in Orange celebrated the first goal in the game. The VAR officials took a long time before making their decision. And in the end, they sided with the French. While VAR for sure has made the in-game decisions more accurate, sometimes game situations end up in grey areas where either decision seems right or wrong at the moment. This was such a moment.
In Layman’s terms, the rule says that an opposition player in an offside position cannot interfere with the goalkeeper’s vision or impact the play anyhow. The man in question in this case, i.e. Denzel Dumfries was surely not doing either of those as he was well towards the left of Mike Maignan rather than in front of him and neither did he interfere with the play. So by that logic, the goal should’ve stood right?
Well, it’s more complicated than that. There is another rule which basically says that if an opposition player is impeding and/or obstructing the goalkeeper’s save, then the goal shall be disallowed. Now, in this case, Dumfries was standing between Mike Maignan and the position where the save could’ve been made if Dumfries was absent. The VAR officials decided this to be an impediment to the goalkeeper’s ability to make a possible save and hence declared the goal to be disallowed.
This raised a lot of questions, right from the commentary box to all over social media. Especially when there was no way Mike Maignan could’ve saved the shot from Simmons, such was the velocity by which the ball was travelling. Whatever it may have been, clearly only one team benefitted from it.
As the match ended in a 0-0 draw, the Xavi Simmons goal could have been the match-winner if it had stood. But instead, the Dutch ended up sharing a point with the French.
