The refereeing controversy that helped Spain to the Euro 2024 quarter-finals

Clash with Germany

Spain are gearing up to face hosts Germany in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals after a rather easy win in the round of 16.

What if it had been overturned?

A superior Spain trashed Georgia in the round of 16 of Euro 2024, but the match could have been different if the referee had disallowed La Roja's first goal.

Georgia was leading 0-1

The game was heading to half-time with Georgia leading 0-1, thanks to an own goal by Spanish defender Le Normand.

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What if they went into half-time 0-1?

If they had gone into half-time 0-1 down, Spain might have had a difficult time after the break and even risk being knocked-out. But that wasn't the case, thanks to Rodri's goal in the 38th minute.

Rodri's left-footed shot

Rodri received the ball from Nico Williams and beat Georgia's goalkeeper Mamardashvili with a superb left-footed shot next to the post: 1-1.

Was Morata offside?

It was a great goal by Rodri, but one that could have been disallowed for offside by Morata. The striker didn't touch the ball, but was standing in the trajectory of the shot.

Willy Sagnol

Georgia's coach, Willy Sagnol, had a clear opinion on the offside, which he shared with the world after the match.

"It is a clear offside"

"It’s difficult to talk just about this offside position, but if you want to have my opinion, it is a clear offside," Sagnol is quoted by The Guardian. "If Dumfries was offside against France, this was 10-times offside today. VAR is fantastic but we don’t know how to use it probably."

VAR looked at the phase

VAR checked the phase, but told French referee François Letexier to give the goal. Sagnol was not amused.

"They don’t give the same decisions"

"Decisions are always taken by, let’s say, the same kind of people; they sit there with 10 screens, they have to analyse everything, but from one match to the other they don’t give the same decisions," Sagnol continued. "That is why the players don’t understand it any more, staff don’t know any more, coaches don’t. VAR is great but until we know how to use it properly maybe we have to wait until we use it again."

Everything would have been different

"When we scored we felt that we could have a chance, because we had felt we had a chance before [the game]," Sagnol felt. "If at half-time we had maybe still led 1-0 we might have had a bit more energy in the second half."

He acknowledges Spain's superiority

However, Sagnol also acknowledged that Spain were the better team. "In the larger spectrum, Spain deserved a win, there is no discussion on that," he said.

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