Should two of France’s goals have stood in the World Cup final?
Related Story: France the world champion after downing Croatia
France is World Cup champion for a second time in its history after a 4-2 win over Croatia — but with two goals scored in very contentious fashion in a two-goal win, could Croatia feel rightly aggrieved by the result?
Croatia had the chance to secure a fairytale win over mighty France, and flew out the traps early doors to pin Les Bleus back for the opening 15 minutes.
But two of football's regular lightning rods for controversy — a possible dive and the video-assistant referee (VAR) — just had to emerge from the biggest match of 2018.
Let's start with perhaps the least debatable of the two incidents: The foul on Antoine Griezmann for the free-kick which led to France's opener.
Griezmann looked to shimmy his way past Marcelo Brozovic, going down easily under the midfielder's attentions to set up a set piece in a very dangerous area.
But none of the subsequent replays' angles do Griezmann any favours. Griezmann appears to either be looking for contact and dropping to the floor as soon as he finds it, or not making any contact at all and going down anyway.
The free kick, taken by Griezmann, found the head of Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic, who deflected it backwards into his own net for France's first goal.
Now to really delve into grey areas …
Croatia would equalise through an emphatic finish from Ivan Perisic just 10 minutes afterwards. But another 10 minutes later, the men in red and white found themselves behind again, and again it was in controversial fashion.
External Link: SBS The World Game tweets Ball hits Perisic hand! VAR is checking it. Thoughts?
In came from a France corner. Blaise Matuidi went up for a near-post header, but missed the nod-on. Instead, the ball landed near the defending Perisic's arm, prompting wild gesticulations from French players, pleading for a handball.
The referee put his finger to his ear, and after what felt like an eternity, signalled that he would consult the VAR.
On came the replays. The ball drifted past Matuidi, towards the twisting Perisic, whose lower left hand practically spiked the ball downwards and out over the byline.
But the motion of Perisic's arm followed his twisting upper body, in what looked like a natural movement.
The referee ran to the sideline, ready to analyse vision from the VAR. A long wait ensued.
External Link: SBS The World Game tweets A double check from the ref, but it's a penalty to France!
VAR, remember, is there to overturn obvious errors by the referee. And yet determining whether this was an error or not was taking a relative age to decide.
So was it an obvious error? The (unintentional?) spike from Perisic looked bad on slow-mo replay, and the two replays offered by VAR looked increasingly worse and worse for the Croatian marker.
But the issue with the ultimate verdict — other than real time and slow-motion replays tell different tales — is that the given decision may be in keeping with the letter of the law, but less so in the spirit of the game.
"I never comment on refereeing but let me say one sentence: In a World Cup final you do not give that kind of penalty," Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said.
"But it in no way diminishes France's win."
In real time, it's highly unlikely the handball was deliberate. Matuidi was in front of Perisic as the intended target. The Frenchman missed his header. The ball instead travelled on to Perisic, twisting in the air and unsuspectingly glancing the ball with his trailing hand.
It wouldn't be the 2018 World Cup without VAR rearing its head one last time to cap off the tournament in which it made its global showpiece debut.
A lot of incorrect calls have been rendered correct thanks to VAR. Sure, it's taken some getting used to with the wait to modify referees' calls — though the interruption to football's flow has not been as long or interminable as the naysayers would tell you.
And yes, it's resulted in an absurd amount of penalties scored in the tournament — and a few arguably ignored too, such has been the jostling in the box at times — but this can be put down to players needing to adjust to top-level football's brave new world.
There are still problems with the system. That's not to write it off.
The problems need to be highlighted, the complaints need to be heard, and over the next year or two, FIFA and its confederations need to iron out the process until football has something approaching the smoothness of referrals in tennis and cricket.
But until such time, there will be moments that cost teams dearly, and Croatia appears to have literally paid the penalty in football's biggest match.
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