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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

"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."

"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."

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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