Spain players slam referee for allowing Kylian Mbappe’s winner for France in Nations League final stand; with Sergio Busquets saying the decision doesn’t make sense.
Spain midfielder Sergio Busquets has criticised VAR’s decision to allow Mbappe’s winner to stand in France’s 2-1 victory in the UEFA Nations League final on Sunday.
France won the second edition of the tournament thanks to a late goal by Kylian Mbappe.
Spain had taken the lead through Mikel Oyarzabal before Karim Benzema equalised for France two minutes later.
Mbappe now put France ahead in the 80th minute after Theo Hernandez played the ball into him behind the Spanish defence.
But the Paris Saint-Germain forward was adjudged to be offside when scoring the goal, with Footage of the incident showing that he was occupying an offside position when Hernandez passed the ball.
As a result, Spain captain Sergio Busquets said VAR’s decision to let the goal stand ‘didn’t make sense’.
However, the match officials felt that Eric Garcia had deliberately touched the ball. And so, they treated everything after that moment as a new phase of play, which is according to the current rules.
Currently, the rules state that ‘a player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage.’
But the Spanish players were not pleased with the ruling and expressed their disappointments over the decision.
“Mbappe is offside. The referee tells me that I tried to play the ball. What should I do? Step aside and let him run? Apparently, that’s the rule,” said Garcia.
Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta also complained and told Sky Sports: “The referee is there to make decisions. What I’m more disappointed about is that the referee who makes the decision is not Mr Anthony Taylor who was here, it’s the one who is in the VAR. I think the monitor is there to use it.
“Every time we have meetings with the referees we say the same and I don’t know why he didn’t go to the monitor and see for himself if it’s deliberate play or not.
“The offside is very clear and the referee watching the reviews in the office says that he can play the ball, which I don’t think so.”
Spain coach Luis Enrique was equally annoyed about the incident but chose to be silent. When asked to comment, he said.
“I would like to talk, but I’m not going into that. I’ve nothing to say.”
