A splendid cannon shot to put Manchester City back in the game. Kevin De Bruyne’s very fine goal (67th) in the second half allowed Pep Guardiola’s men to come out with a draw (1-1) from this Champions League semi-final on the lawn of Real Madrid. But this achievement was quick to cause controversy, especially in the Spanish clan.
The reason ? The defending champions denounce an irregularity in the action which leads to the realization of the Belgian midfielder, who responded to the opening of the score of the Brazilian Vinicius in the first period. Before the goal, the Portuguese Bernardo Silva intervenes to prevent the ball from going into touch on the right wing of the Citizens.
However, the ball would have completely gone out of bounds, which means that the game should have stopped and resumed with a touch. beIN Sports, which did not broadcast the meeting in France on Tuesday evening, also published a computer-generated image reconstructing the scene, which shows that the ball was fully out. A three-dimensional digital snapshot widely commented on social networks in the evening.
“The ball was out of bounds. That’s all. Technology has said so, fumed Real coach Carlo Ancelotti, who was shown a yellow card for protesting at the time. I don’t understand why the VAR didn’t check it. The referee didn’t pay attention to a lot of things tonight. »
But if it is tempting to attack the VAR frontally, it is also necessary to see if the video assistance could lend a hand to the referee of the meeting, the Portuguese Artur Soares Dias. UEFA protocol provides that the VAR team can intervene in the event of “manifest error” by the man at the whistle in the event of a goal by one of the teams. A statement that can fit in this case.
A technology not available for VAR
However, could the VAR see this incident in the wake of the goal? Because if beIN Sports then shared this famous digital image, UEFA officials only have slow motion cameras from the meeting. And not technology to ensure whether or not the ball went out of bounds.
There are cameras installed under the roof of the stadiums to follow the ball and the players, on 29 different points of their body, but these are only used within the framework of the semi-automatic offside. Unlike the balls used during the last World Cup, the Champions League balls are not equipped with a chip either, which would not have changed anything in this specific case.
“They did not have the ability to check whether the ball was out or not, agreed Arsene Wenger, FIFA development director and beIN Sports consultant. Normally, VAR cannot check on the touchline, only on the goal line. And too bad for Real Madrid.
