There was some confusion over the Kylian Mbappé goal that ultimately won the Nations League for France, as a Spain player ruined his own offside trap.
Spain had taken the lead through Mikel Oyarzabal and Karim Benzema’s curler cancelled it out almost immediately.
Nations League | Spain 1-2 France: Comeback Kings strike again
Mbappé ran onto the Theo Hernandez through ball and beat Unai Simon one-on-one for what proved to be the winner.
Replays suggested Mbappé was offside, as he was clearly not level with Eric Garcia.
However, it was Eric Garcia who ruined his own offside trap by lunging to make contact with the pass, getting a small touch to it.
That intentional touch reset the play and means Mbappé was therefore not offside.
Spanish media considered it a ‘scandal,’ but the rules of the game state Eric Garcia intentionally played the ball.
Had he just let the pass go through, it would’ve been disallowed.
Former referees and now television pundits Luca Marelli and Tiziano Pieri both explain this is the correct reading of the rules, even though they might not ‘like’ the way the regulations are currently interpreted.
🔥 GOAL STANDS 🔥
Could that be the winner? Kylian Mbappe finds the back of the net for France with less than ten minutes to play – and it still stands after a VAR review!
🇪🇸 Spain 1-2 France 🇫🇷
📺 Watch the #UEFANationsLeague Final live on Sky Football and Main Event pic.twitter.com/xKN8SKOOy6
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) October 10, 2021
That’s offside. I don’t know how they didn’t call this but I was baffled on the replies.
And it’s the first time I’m hearing about all this. Garcia tried to intercept, what’s that gotta do with the fact that it was offside in the first place? I have never seen or heard such a thing before.
Pretty sure that was offside.
Rule 11 explicitly states “at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate”.
At that point , Mbappe is offside. What happens subsequently (from rule 11) isnt relevant.
I didn’t see it but it happened in the premier league, man city match, the defender covered the ball poorly and the attacker who was clearly offside got the ball and scored
The “VAR” is to favor who they want to favor.
There is a difference in trying to intercept the ball, and the defender passing the ball back. If it was a clear touch back it wouldn’t be offside cause the ball came from his pass. But that was an attempt to intercept the pass.
Ridiculous.
Haven’t you read the articol? The defender touched the ball so no offside according to the rules. Which obviously you didn’t read them
You people know NOTHING about football. It’s 100% offside. Please, this is ridiculous. Please learn a bit about the sport.
So according to this explanation, the denfender is not allowed to defend and must be at the mercy of lady VAR.
“If I try to defend the offside (in case it is one) will be cancelled, if I don’t try to defend, it’s a 50/50… mmm… what should I do ?”
What a ridiculous decision.
thats our milan fan who thinks golden foot doesen’t make difference.
How is the defender supposed to know mbappe is behind him, he should just stand still and not try to play the ball. Var is ruining the game
@cesar
the rule has nothing to do with VAR, it is the RULE. If he touches the ball he cancels the offside,what is so difficult to comprehend?
Cris,
You read the article! They key word is DELIBERATE.
Eric Garcia did NOT deliberately pass the ball back. It deflected off him. How was that a intentional by him. His intention was to intercept it.
I know the rules have changed 100 times but I still thought it’s the position of the forward player at the time his teammate strikes the pass. And at that moment M’Bappe was offside.
If this is not offside then we better kiss football goodbye as a sport.
How in the world is Garcia supposed to know if Mbappe is in an offside position or not? He can’t even see him since he doesn’t have eyes behind his back but even if he did, he either has to stay put and risk a goal or try to intercept the ball.
He tried to intercept and touched the ball but it barely changed the outcome as it still ended up in possession of Mbappe, who was offside initially.
That is offside.
“That intentional touch reset the play and means Mbappé was therefore not offside.”
Intentional? Eric Garcia intended THAT minor deflection onto Mbappe’s foot? No, his intention was to cut it out.
Sorry, more Offside than On.
Intentional means when the defender sees the ball and makes an action to defend it. If the defender was in obstruction of the opponent’s pass unknowingly and resulted in a deflection of the ball and went to the offside attacker, THAT would be OFFSIDE. But in this situation, that wasnt the case. That is the difference between intentional and non intentional. Its really not that difficult to understand guys. Come on…use your brains why do you even watch football without knowing the rules smh.
I’m visually impaired and even I’m amazed this was given onside…
My surprise is brought to earth when I see this decision was in the hands of a Premier League ref team. A ref that isn’t up to the standards of working any big games, so sloppy and misguided misinterpretation of the rules.
We’d be better with robots as refs, because they’d too take the rule book too far and don’t understand the flow of the game. I give up. we’re better off watching two blind men play darts.
i dont understand, are you complaining about the rules? if so, why are you doing it now when they are already made? writting a mail to uefa at right time could be more useful than this type of crying.
Good goal under the current interpretation of the law. Not clear to me how people don’t get that. It’s not the words of the law which counts, it’s the current interpretation, which considers that a deliberate touch. Sorry some of you don’t like it, and so you feel the need to personally attack the others in order to feel better about yourselves. And the result is that you then look even more foolish. I’m not crazy about it either, but I’m a grown-up and have to accept it.
So sad lol, Italy had a ridiculous call against them to hand the game to Spain, not only in the nations league but Champions league too. Milan and Madrid game.
Busquets playing acting with the refs corrupted call to send off Italy’s Captain and play with ten men., sealed a victory for Spain.
Even with ten men, Italy’s had more shots on target and still was able to score a goal.
Both Yellows on Bonucci were deserved. Or else he wouldn’t have apologized.
The atmosphere that night caused by the red & black half of the Meazza set the nervous & toxic tone that Gli Azzurri had to deal with. Chiellini’s post match comments had a lot to do with it as well. Say nothing of horrible defending.
Sammy can you pls step forward and take a bow (dangerboy-you’d be wrong about 1st card on Boinuci what you can’t ask a ref what’s going on? and the 2nd card elbow ok a card but even there considering it is Spain playing I mean playacting antics who knows if he deliberately did not jump high enough so Bonucci’s elbow landed on his neck)
Sammy I have been watching Italy since 80’s and this new kid on the block in past decade called Spain what we found is histrionics and antics that I consider this team to be the Argentina of Europe as we all know how emotional Argent is during tourneys (that is not to say these 2 teams don’t play well)
This France goal is not offside because of the rule in the books. Period. Trust me Spain is traumatized over this and will affect them into the World Cup, karma too bad for spoiling the Italy Party with antics and sending off a player. Bonucci . Who in his right mind sends off a player to ruin the game in a tourney. Only reason ref in Euro final did not do that is because Italy media did an expose on him so he did not want to rock the boat but that Italy Spain ref was clearly rogue like some 10 cards all over the place. That ref ruined that game.
Eric Garcia is a car crash waiting to happen. He was constantly messing up Barcelona’s defensive line on thru balls vs Benfica as well.
The reason why he’s not offside is exactly the same reason why Lukaku was not offside when he scored Belgium’s first goal again Russia in the Euro 2020. I’m not sure why there’s so much debate about the goal now when there was absolutely no debate for Lukaku’s goal back then? The rule seemed clear to everyone back then, but not now?
Jared Knowles
I too thought that as Captain that night Bonucci had every right to speak to the Referee. I think I even wrote it in a comment on an article on here. Referee knows this as well. But to be flashed a Yellow Card it is quite clear that Bonucci must have cussed at him or insulted him. Normal talking, without swearing, would have not seen him get a card. As such, the need for Boni to apologize.
Nevermind this alleged Spain behaviour you write off. I saw Chiellini act like a fool twice trying to get a Spaniard sent off.
Come on, let’s be serious here. We lost our heads that match fueled by the bad atmosphere in the stadium and as Chiellini said in his post match, wanted to show that Italy wouldn’t be out performed by Spain again. Italy played with a lack of patience and composure for the first 45 Minutes and it cost them the match.
Bonucci needed to calm TF down and Bastoni let the occassion get to him.
Admit defeat. Don’t cast aspersions on Spain.