Yeah I thought that at the time, I'm not sure if they are supposed to interpret hands covering the head as "unnatural position" or not but they should, if the ball is going to hit your body anyways but you protect with your arm then it shouldn't be a handball imo. I'm pro VAR, this mistake is still on the referee and their judgement, VAR just allows them to get it right a lot more, there is always going to be some amount of interpretation that will lead to human error.
but that leaves too much to interpretation. A player, a coach, any ref can then always justify that the intention was only made to protect himself from harm and instinctive. I totally get that the player was likely not trying to stop the ball with his hands but they were away from his body and in an unnatural position unless Zambrano is some type of TRex and his arms always fold outward toward the player/ball. In this year's Champions final, in the 1st minute, Sissoko's silly handball wasnt deliberate. The guy was pointing at his teammate to cover behind but that was more of a blatant stupid play by Sissoko that was unintentional but the PK had to given.
The game is full of non stop people justifying even completely ridiculous things, it's inherent to the game. And it really doesn't matter if your hands are in your body, if your hands are outside of your body then you are gaining an advantage, the rules clearly state gaining a possible advantage in an unnatural position is a penalty, there is a disconnect with unnatural position and advantage in this case. The argument is it may have been unnatural but if you are unnatural blocking your face you are not gaining an advantage so in the spirit of the rule it should not be a penalty imo.
No manager or trainer ever tells a defender to run toward the ball/jump toward the ball and raise their hand like what happened in the match: Coaches usually tell you to hold your hands behind your back. We have seen Davinson do that a lot lately. Maybe VAR would have given the defender more slack if he was just standing there and the ball hit him in the hand. But even then, the way he raises it to intentionally block the ball near is head is a penalty by rule. .
damn it... doing the "math".... I can't have a Uruguay v Colombia final unless both finish 2nd or if Colombia finishes 2nd and Uruguay at 1st... If both are firsts then its a semi final collision.... booooo
The way I see it, we'll have to face both Chile and Uruguay in any order that the position is filled. Unless one of them gets third place which I seriously doubt. That's the price we're going to pay if we win these next two games as expected and top our group. But we would still need to face the strongest to win this cup.
Poop.... A rather unfortunate turn... a team from 3rd B/C may have the best route to the finals.... SOB.
Yes by the letter of the law its a penalty, by the spirit of the law it is not. The only reason you get penalized for an unnatural position is because you can game the system to gain an advantage and make yourself bigger. Any law needs reasonable interpretation that takes into consideration the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law, if you are not gaining an advantage because you are blocking a part of the body that would block the ball anyways then a reasonable referee should consider that factor. Concussions suck, getting struck in the face with a ball can easily cause one, don't think players should be penalized for protecting themselves while not gaining an advantage.
'spirit of the law'...? in professional sports and in gritty Conmebol there have been much much worse calls and poor sportsmanship. But if I were to still follow your logic, the ball is going on an upward trajectory and his arms nullify any chance of the ball even having a chance to get to the net, hence that's not a reasonable way to defend the play.
If you guys think about it, this would make things SUPER easy for whoever ends up on that side of the bracket; if Brazil win their group well they won't have a lot to deal with...
Armani should have gotten red card He was the last man way way out of his goal and he didn’t touch the ball at all. Comenbol are just like you can’t knock Argentina out In group stage even tho it would be funny