World Cup round of 32 match between Portugal and Croatia produced the most glaring use of the "snicko" technology so far at World Cup, a term brought in from cricket, that refers to a technology that automatically detects if the ball had been touched, which in this case was used to determine that Croatia's equalising goal in the 103rd minute was offside, ending the match 2-1 to Portugal.
Josko Gvardiol was in correct position when he pushed the ball for the goal, but his tap-in came preceded by a slight contact by the head of Igor Matanovic, which counted as a "pass" and automatically meant that Mario Pasalic was in an offside position.
And they know Matanovic had a slight contact with the ball because of sensors in the ball: the ball has a microchip and detects even the slightest of contacts, the technology is semi-automatic, like the offside technologies, and leaves no room open for interpretation.
"IMU sensors housed within the Trionda ball are capable of determining any slight contact, displayed to viewers in the broadcast as a 'heartbeat graphic', and allowing officials an unprecedented level of data to make fast, accurate decisions", said FIFA, but fans aren't convinced, and are showing an angle of the replay in which Matanovic doesn't seem to hit the ball with his head...
But even if there's a very small contact, even if it appears to not alter the ball's direction, if technology says a contact happened, it happened: there's no doubt for malfunction nor room for interpretation. The contact made the other player offside, and ruled out anything that comes after.
Naturally, Croatia fans are raging, and Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said that VAR had gone too far. "VAR kills emotions, it kills everything within you. We have gone too far with VAR."
