FOOTAGE OF THE CONTROVERSIAL JAPAN GOAL HAS BEEN RELEASED & FIFA STANDS BY IT
FOOTAGE OF THE CONTROVERSIAL JAPAN GOAL HAS BEEN RELEASED & FIFA STANDS BY IT
Japanese & German Football Will Remember This Goal For A Long Time
By Rashmi Goel
There are several controversies regarding Var's decisions that have already arisen in this World Cup, which has only been underway for a little over two weeks. As part of their decision to overturn the decision to disallow Japan's winning goal versus Spain on Thursday, Fifa has finally revealed the footage they used to overturn the decision. The decision came 20 hours after the controversial incident that helped to send Germany crashing out of the World Cup. Although none of those decisions have proved to be as controversial as the one that allowed Ao Tanaka's winner for Japan against Spain to stand.
A 4K image released recently appears to show that the controversial second goal that Japan scored in their shock victory over Spain was the right call. Japan beat Spain 2-1 in one of the most dramatic World Cup games ever witnessed, and as a result of this, Germany finished in the bottom half of the group stage for the second consecutive time, despite beating Costa Rica by a score of 4-2 on Sunday afternoon. There was a stunning turnaround of events just 142 seconds later when Ao Tanaka managed to score a key second to complete the turnaround. Although Kaoru Mitoma tried his best to score the goal, the officials initially disallowed it as they believed the ball went out of play despite Mitoma's best efforts. The decision, however, was overturned after a lengthy VAR review, so the players from Japan could celebrate again after the decision had been reversed. The ball looked like it was clearly out from some angles, but it was not that obvious from others...
On Friday afternoon, FIFA tweeted out a video showing the images that VAR Fernando Guerrero and his assistants used to determine that the ball had not passed out of play before Kaoru Mitoma crossed for Ao Tanaka to score in Japan's 2-1 victory over the US. In response to the video, Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England defender, who is currently working as a pundit for host broadcaster BeIN Sports in Qatar, questioned why television companies are not being given access to the same footage at the same time. There is no reason why you should not allow broadcasters access to the real-time angles and footage of VAR officials that are being viewed by the officials. ” Neville tweeted.
As a result, fans were also denied access to the same images in the Khalifa International Stadium, which only added to the shock and confusion when the angles being circulated on social media appeared to indicate that the ball was out of play after the goal. According to two tweets Fifa sent on Friday afternoon, the goal line camera images were used by the video match officials to check if the ball remained partially on the line or not and were accompanied by a collection of video images that appeared to show the ball was just millimeters away from being in. Although other cameras may present misleading images, according to the officials, the entire ball was not considered to be out of play after analyzing all of the evidence available to them.
In an interview with ITV, referee Peter Walton explained that “there is a misconception in the law that just because the part of the ball on the ground is over the line, it is out. However, this is clearly not true since the ball has a curvature. In many cases, corner kicks are over the line but not quite over the line, and we see it often with corner kicks. According to the VAR, in this particular case, what the referee would need to know is if there is any evidence at all in front of him to suggest that the ball has clearly left the field of play, and he does not have that evidence in front of him based on what we are witnessing”.
