Qatar and Ecuador were both involved in the first controversial VAR call of the World Cup this afternoon when Enner Valencia's fifth-minute goal was ruled off for offside.
The former West Ham and Everton striker was in the right place at the right time to head home Felix Torres' overhead kick into an empty net. VAR replays showed that Valencia and Michael Estrada were in an offside position in the build-up.
The decision was made after replays showed the ball coming off Torres, who was challenging the goalkeeper. Michale Estrada, whose foot is judged to be offside, then heads the ball back to Torres before Valencia scores.
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As per the IFAB rules, a player is in an offside position if 'any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponent's goal line than both the ball and second-last opponent.'
Valencia's early setback did not stop him from ruining Qatar's party with two first-half goals putting Gustavo Alfaro's side 2-0 up at half-time. The 33-year-old forward has now scored five World Cup goals in his previous four outings in the tournament.
And during the half-time break, former England strikers Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker were left puzzled by the video assistant's decision to rule out Valencia's strike. Speaking to BBC Sport, Shearer said: "I'm going to have high blood pressure at the end of this month if it continues like this!
I don't think there's any person watching this in the world that thinks this is offside. Ball goes up, the challenge is there and we're all thinking, 'okay, it's not a high kick and they win the header and a fair header into the back of the net'."
Lineker agreed with his colleague by calling the decision 'absurd' before Shearer continued: "The sad thing is, you have 60,000 in the stadium and millions around the world and no one had a clue what was going on. There's just no information being fed back at all. That can't be right."
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