Gian Piero Gasperini was furious about the Atalanta equaliser that was disallowed for an active offside position in their 4-1 defeat to Roma, so we analyse the incident.
It was 2-1 at the time to Roma and a corner was knocked on by Duvan Zapata, it struck Bryan Cristante at the back post and went in.
News came from the VAR booth that Jose Luis Palomino was in an offside position and it was therefore disallowed.
Gasperini vented his fury afterwards, pointing out that the referee had told them Palomino got the last touch.
Gasperini rant at ref ‘ruining credibility’ with Atalanta disallowed goal
However, replays shot Palomino was behind Cristante and never touched the ball.
That means it was considered an active offside position rather than specifically the player scoring a goal who was offside.
In that case, the referee should’ve been called to the VAR monitor to evaluate whether this was an active offside position or passive.
The VAR can only make objective calls, not subjective ones, and whether an offside is active when not touching the ball is definitely a subjective issue.
Whether Palomino was indeed active or passive is certainly open to debate.
On the one hand, he was behind Cristante and did not impede his control, but on the other Cristante was only trying to make contact with the ball because he had Palomino right on his shoulder ready to tap in.
In either circumstance, the referee should still have been called over to make that evaluation himself, as this was beyond the VAR’s area of control.
There were also some Roma suggestions that the goal was disallowed for Duvan Zapata’s handball, but the footage shows that the ball struck his shoulder.
Much ado about nothing. If Cristante is aware of the player behind him and moving to defend him, and in the process scores an own goal, of course it was an ‘active offside’!
Now, I am the world’s biggest critic of the offside rule, but that is because I don’t think the game of football needs it any more, on top of creating these needless ‘controversies’.
Inalso think need to cencel offside rule we will see something new in this game and much less controversies and not true happening
ROMA HAS BEEN TROUBLED BY REFEREE AND VAR ON MANY GAMES ALREADY, AND YET THERE IS NO ARTICLES TALKING ABOUT IT.
ROMA ARE BETTER THAN ATALANTA LAST NIGHT, THE RESULT SPEAK FOR ITSELF. GET OVER IT! ROMA SHOULD’VE BEEN IN TOP 4 RIGHT NOW IF IT WASNT BECAUSE OF REFEREE OR VAR!!!!!!
Juventus fan here – I didn’t see the game.
However, if Gasperini is going to bemoan the result due to 1 goal cancelled due to some lousy mistake, then he’s not a professional coach, just a crybaby.
Roma were already 2-1 up, even if this goal would’ve been allowed, Roma did end up 2 more. What’s the excuse for that? And where’s the 3rd goal by Atalanta?
Face it, Roma deserved it fair and square.
Del Piero fan above is right. Roma did deserve it. Create your chances and execute. Atalanta did not execute. Call it a bad night or whatever but Roma had more quality with less possession and were tactically more sound.
But surely, if the equalizer counted it could have changed the entire complexion of the game. Scorelines often don’t reflect the actual makeup of the game, one team could have 20 shots and not score and one team have one and win 1-0. Roma probably were the better team on the night, it would have been the same if the result happened the other way around.
Atalanta also had two penalty decisions not go their way and int he build up to the first goal a defender was pulled to the ground. Surely this is the whole reason why we have VAR, but, it doesn’t seem to be working.