{"id":30167,"date":"2026-07-03T11:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/fifa-breaks-silence-on-var-decision-drama-in-croatia-vs-portugal-explains-why-late-equaliser-was-ruled-out-football-news\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:51:18","slug":"fifa-breaks-silence-on-var-decision-drama-in-croatia-vs-portugal-explains-why-late-equaliser-was-ruled-out-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/fifa-breaks-silence-on-var-decision-drama-in-croatia-vs-portugal-explains-why-late-equaliser-was-ruled-out-football-news\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA breaks silence on VAR decision drama in Croatia vs Portugal, explains why late equaliser was ruled out | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-132153177,imgsize-192440,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/croatia-portugal-wcup-soccer.jpg\" alt=\"FIFA breaks silence on VAR decision drama in Croatia vs Portugal, explains why late equaliser was ruled out\" title=\"Croatia's Petar Sucic (17) and teammates react to a loss during the World Cup round of 32. (AP Photo\/Mike Stewart)\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Ta7d_ img_cptn\"><span title=\"Croatia's Petar Sucic (17) and teammates react to a loss during the World Cup round of 32. (AP Photo\/Mike Stewart)\">Croatia&#8217;s Petar Sucic (17) and teammates react to a loss during the World Cup round of 32. (AP Photo\/Mike Stewart)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Croatia&#8217;s heartbreaking exit from the <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/fifa-world-cup\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">FIFA World Cup<\/a> 2026 against Portugal came down to one of the tournament&#8217;s most dramatic VAR decisions, with FIFA later explaining that advanced ball technology played a key role in ruling out a stoppage-time equaliser.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>Croatia appeared to have made it 2-2 in the 103rd minute of their Round of 32 clash in Toronto when Josko Gvardiol tapped in from close range after a cross into the box. The goal sparked wild celebrations before VAR intervened and disallowed it for offside.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"7\"\/> <span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"10\"\/>The controversy centred around whether Croatian forward Igor Matanovic had made contact with the ball before it reached Mario Pasalic, who was standing in an offside position. <span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"14\"\/>Initially, it appeared that Pasalic had received the ball after a deflection from Portugal defender Renato Veiga, which would have kept the goal alive. However, VAR determined that Matanovic had made a slight touch moments earlier.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"16\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>How ball technology decided Croatia&#8217;s fate<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"18\"\/>According to the decision, Pasalic was in an offside position when Matanovic made contact with the ball, meaning his assist for Gvardiol could not stand.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"20\"\/>FIFA later confirmed that the crucial touch was detected using the Connected Ball Technology installed inside the official Adidas Trionda match ball.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"23\"\/>&#8220;According to the data provided by Connected Ball Technology housed within the @adidasfootball Trionda, the official match ball of the @FIFAWorldCup, it was proven that contact was made by Croatia&#8217;s #20 Igor Matanovi\u0107 in the build up to the goal against Portugal, allowing the referee to correctly determine offside and disallow the goal.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"25\"\/><span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"27\"\/>&#8220;IMU sensors housed within the Trionda ball are capable of determining any slight contact, displayed to viewers in the broadcast as a &#8216;heartbeat graphic&#8217;, and allowing officials an unprecedented level of data to make fast, accurate decisions,&#8221; FIFA Media shared on X.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"30\"\/>Croatia had taken the lead through Ivan Perisic early in the second half before Cristiano Ronaldo equalised with his third goal of the tournament. <span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"32\"\/>Goncalo Ramos then scored the winner in stoppage time, heading home a Rafael Leao cross to send Portugal through to the last 16.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"34\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/sports\/football\/fifa-world-cup\/fifa-breaks-silence-on-var-decision-drama-in-croatia-vs-portugal-explains-why-late-equaliser-was-ruled-out\/articleshow\/132152987.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Croatia&#8217;s Petar Sucic (17) and teammates react to a loss during the World Cup round of 32. (AP Photo\/Mike Stewart) Croatia&#8217;s heartbreaking exit from the FIFA World Cup 2026 against Portugal came down to one of the tournament&#8217;s most dramatic VAR decisions, with FIFA later explaining that advanced ball technology played a key role in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}