England – Spain, a match without legal goals but with winners and losers

It will remain in the memory Spain he was able to force extra time with a wasted penalty shot in the last minute of the game, but he also got to that point losing because of a very serious refereeing error. The purpose of which England lead in extra time of the first half is not legal. There are two players embedded in the Spanish barrier and both are in an illegal position because, according to the rules of the game, they must be at least one meter from the defensive wall. To make matters worse, the ball hit Curtis Jonesone of the English contained in the Spanish, then Cole Palmer take the direct free kick. The ball hits Liverpool and completely deflects its trajectory to mislead a Arnau Tenas it will be beaten. But the referee did not decide to cancel the goal in the first instance and VAR did not correct the braid either. In fact, UEFA gave Curtis Jones the goal, so they saw very well that the ball hit him when he was in an illegal position. Those in charge of dispensing justice produced the opposite.

‘Errare humanum est’, they say, but in this case the consequences are what they are. It is not understood that some international referees are not capable of seeing a fact like two players are less than a meter from the barrier (the ball also hit one of them) and even the use of VAR does not change the decision . . Of course, it is impossible to know the future of the match if that goal does not go up on the scoreboard and that Spain It could equally end up losing, but of course that seems more likely. These things cannot happen in elite football.

In all of this, it should be noted that it was at the group stage of the arbitration that the discussion about this was born European Under-21. A ghost goal (which was a goal) from Italy against France was not validated and there it was decided that from the quarterfinals there would be VAR. So, improvising along the way. UEFA should think about it.