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.