It’s an image that Graeme Souness and Gary Neville could have done with on Thursday night as the pair were left scratching their heads at Japan’s hugely controversial winner against Spain being allowed to stand. But a new camera angle seems to suggest that the ball WAS still in play when Kaoru Mitoma crossed for Ao Tanaka to net a famous goal for Blue Samurai. Rangers and Scotland legend Souness didn’t have the benefit of that as he debated with the rest of the ITV panel whether it should have stood.
And that left them to draw just one conclusion - that the goal shouldn’t have stood. A bird’s eye view of the incident gives fresh perspective and Souness said at the time: “Every television studio, pundit, everyone who’s got an interest in this World Cup will be wanting to see this picture [from above]. To us it looked like the ball went out here in the stadium, the pictures we have seen it looks like the ball is out.
“Why is FIFA not showing us something so controversial? This is not subjective. It’s black and white. Show us the pictures, FIFA! The longer they don’t produce a picture, you’re thinking there is something untoward going on.”
Rules state that the ball is in play if the curvature of the ball is on ANY part of the line and VAR deemed that to be the case after watching replays and referring to goal line line cameras. But armchair fans didn’t have the benefit of that technology and from the TV angle shown the entirety of the ball looked to be over the line. The ball was initially ruled out by the match officials before they consulted video replays.
Souness’ sidekick Neville said: “VAR have seen something that we have not seen around the world. We can’t get an angle of what the VAR officials have seen to overturn the decision.”
ITV’s resident referee expert Peter Walton was also at a loss to explain why a better angle wasn’t shown. He said: "I’m at a miss why they haven’t showed it yet, they’ve got their reasons and only time will tell. I do think the evidence will appear sooner or later whether that ball hasn’t crossed the line.”
And now he has that evidence with Japan celebrating a famous win to set up a clash against Croatia on Monday for a place in the quarter finals.
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