FIFA World Cup: FIFA explains how Japan's winning goal vs Spain was fair

Following Japan’s controversial winning goal against Spain in their final Group E game on Thursday night, FIFA came out with an official explanation why the goal scored by Ao Tanaka was legitimate as earlier VAR check ruled the goal in the Asian side’s favour to the disbelief of many.

TV camera angles suggested that the 51st-minute goal by Tanaka should stand disallowed as the assist by Kaoru Mitoma looked illegitimate with the ball going out of play before the player squared it to the goal scorer.

This left fans around the globe baffled, especially drawing reactions from Spanish and Germans as the latter had to exit the World Cup as they finished third in the group despite a 4-2 win over Costa Rica. Japanese edged the Germans on goal difference after being tied on four points each.

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In a tweet on its official Twitter handle, FIFA explained that despite certain camera angles suggesting that the ball didn’t cross the line before Mitoma kicked it, video’s for the VAR check confirmed that the ball was barely in play at the time of being kicked while adding that certain camera angles could be deceptive.

Japan’s second goal in their 2-1 win over Spain was checked by VAR to determine if the ball had gone out of play.

The video match officials used the goal line camera images to check if the ball was still partially on the line or not. pic.twitter.com/RhN8meei6Q

— FIFA (@FIFAcom) December 2, 2022

The images certainly failed to please Spain’s manager Luis Enrique, who believed that something fishy is going behind the scene with VAR.

“I have seen a photo that must have been tampered with. It cannot be that this photo is real. It has to be manipulated,” said Enrique in disbelief. “I felt that something fishy was going on when the VAR took as much time as it did to decide… I have nothing to say.”

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