Excellent point about goal difference, even more obvious than the example I brought. The referees need to dot their i’s and cross their t’s. This call is very unusual, but they need to be responsible and get it right even if there is no present, immediate, or obvious benefit for doing so. And I really don’t think this is a new, VAR-induced problem. The fact that a goal can’t be scored after the attacker committed an offence is nothing new. It would’ve been irresponsible to allow a goal like this. And given how blatant both fouls were, we really should be critical that the crew didn’t get this right on the field. Seems like a classic case of EPL referees punting to VAR instead of making any controversial decision.
I was suggesting that Haaland's foul on Szoboszlai could be viewed as a YC (and I believe his 2nd YC if given). Each team losing a player for their next game might seem a bit more fair to some (if not many) in this situation.
Conversation just keeps going in circles. At some point people just need to accept that, every so often, a situation occurs in a match that the LOTG don’t have an answer for, the referees have to decide in a few minutes of time crunch how to best solve it. A few times in this discussion I’ve seen a reference to “team advantage”. I feel like the advantage clause in the LOTG only refers to individual advantage for individual challenges and this is probably the only time a “team advantage” concept would come up, where there’s fouls committed by both teams but a goal is scored anyway. Regardless, this happens so rarely that there’s likely no reason to have it in the laws. I think that both teams likely being upset by the result shows that the correct decision was made.
This is simply wrong. "allows play to continue when an offence occurs and the non-offending team will benefit from the advantage . . ."
I find a YC on Haaland a really tough sell. But you are overstating the limits of VAR. While the VAR cannot recommend a review to give a caution, once the R is at the monitor, the R can take any action he sees fit. If the R felt a caution was warranted, he was unambiguously able to caution Haaland after watching the whole play at the monitor.
Right but you can only judge “team” advantage based on the individual foul. You can’t really look at the overall picture and ignore both individual fouls that occurred and claim advantage just because “the team advantage was scoring a goal anyway” This probably doesn’t make any sense. Anyway my original point I think still holds… that sometimes a situation comes up that the laws don’t cover and you just have to do what you can in a short time window
How do you know what “nobody expected”? Clearly the Liverpool player expected a foul call for being pulled back by haland. If he expected a foul off that, then you had to go back and give a red for him doing the initial foul. And a benefit of the VAR call with the public announcement is that everyone got to hear reasoning behind the decision. I also think that public VAR announcement if they decided to just give the goal would have been quite funny to hear. “Yes, Haaland pulled back soboslai. But soboslai initially pulled back on haland which would have been a DOGSO red card. Given this game is over anyway, we are just going to call it a goal and give no further punishments. The game is over”.
I'm not willing to say this wasn't the "right" conclusion under the laws. But I'm also not willing to assert unequivocally it definitely was, either. Again, you take all the fouls out of this play and Manchester City scores a goal. Ultimately, Manchester City scored a goal. We are punishing Szoboszlai for denying an opponent the opportunity to score a goal which got scored anyway. And we are only punishing him because his foul put him in a position to potentially stop that goal (which he did not, because he was fouled). Now, Law 10.1 is going to be where people hang their hats. Team A can't score a valid goal if Team A committed an offence prior to the ball crossing the line. This is where, technically, the goal can't be scored. But we bend the laws a lot elsewhere and I'm just not totally convinced we can't bend them here. After all, unless we think Pawson is effectively blind, he bent them himself by opting to not call the very obvious foul on the field of play. For Pawson, there really are only two possibilities: he missed two of the most obvious fouls you could possibly see--both in isolation OR he reasoned that a greater sense of fairness here and a larger concept of Law 5 advantage trumped the text of Law 10. I think there's a lot of value in at least considering the latter option. But this is the rub, isn't it? Of course it's a VAR-induced problem. Pawson was willing to let the goal stand and unless you think it's because he truly didn't discern a foul, it's because he was willing to let larger concepts of fairness override one sentence in Law 10 that most people can't cite. And I think in a non-VAR world, everyone is fine with this goal being awarded; the reaction from the two teams and in media indicates so. I get what's written above, but if we're really getting into discussions about Arsenal not winning the title because deliberate cheating by Liverpool in a game not involving Arsenal was ignored because the cheating didn't ultimately work... I mean, no, I don't think that would be a matchday 38 controversy (if anything, I am absolutely sure that if City loses a title or CL spot by 1 goal, we will hear about this!). So yeah, if you think this has to be called then being critical of Pawson for not calling it is fine. But either way, this is only an issue because of VAR. Either Pawson is "punting" as you suggest (which he can only do because it exists) or VAR is overriding a referee's judgment due to technical language. VAR prevents a referee from saying "screw all this, goal is the just outcome." If you're of the opinion that a technically correct outcome is more important than a just one, then that's not a problem. But I grew up being taught that facilitating just outcomes was a big part of what refereeing was about, so I'd at least like to entertain the "goal stands" result in non-VAR matches.
But the LOTG themselves couch advantage explicitly in team terms: Now, the inherent problem is that Liverpool does not benefit from the Haaland foul. So, combined with Law 10, people will argue you must "call" the Haaland foul and then go back to the previous foul because advantage never materialized. I'm suggesting that if the outcome was going to be a goal and the outcome was a goal and that the second foul could only occur because of the first foul... maybe goal is a reasonable outcome.
Yes, but in real life if a thief steals something from someone and then that person immediately "steals" it back... usually the thief doesn't get the free kick. Szoboszlai can "expect" and appeal for something all day, but we all know it's a ridiculous claim. He was just hoping that everyone (including VAR) would miss his foul. I think the original statement that no one expected/wanted a red card is accurate. As for the second part of your post, the argument would be that VAR never gets involved. But again, even as I make these philosophical arguments, I admit it's really hard to make them technically. Which is why I think it's a VAR-induced problem. VAR has protocols and marching orders; in this situation, that means you have to acknowledge the Haaland foul and that starts everything in motiong.
I think it is a bit more than VAR, at least directly. VAR came about, to some degree, because of increasing replay technology and scrutiny. And the Laws have become less broad guidelines and more directive. 30 years ago, I don’t think anyone would have blinked at the ref just waving off the nonsense and giving the goal. But now, with or without VAR, there is a different level of scrutiny. ITOOTR may not be fully dead, but it’s for the death rattle as soccer becomes more and more like baseball in terms of how the game is managed. (But then ever once in a while we throw in “what the game expects….)
Sure, but do you think what you write applies at the amateur level? I think "the ref just waving off the nonsense and giving the goal" works here in a non-professional match. It's the expected outcome.
Also, just to lob one more bomb into this... Obviously the goalkeeper was in the other half and it was already a one-goal game. So this is the difference between a one-goal and a two-goal game. We can talk about goal difference and the red card suspension, but in the grandest scheme of things, this probably didn't matter (other than to Szoboszlai, of course. Oh, and maybe Cherki for any sort of bonus. But I digress...). The idea I was going to raise is that this happens in a tied match. Let's say the goalkeeper is way out due to a tactical mistake and not out of desperation to tie the match. He lands forty yards from goal with no one behind him. Opponent slowly rolls the ball past him toward an empty net and then the same scenario unfolds. In a tied match. Good luck with all that.
When mentioning sobolski I was sort of referring to Liverpool as a whole. I feel like they would see Harland yanking back on him and be furious that the goal was allowed. Of course logic states “but sobolski was only there because of the initial foul, so we decided not to punish either”, but I dunno, I feel like hand waving it all off might create some controversy despite how logical it would be in practice to wave off two clear “offsetting” fouls. I think overall, it’s good that (to my knowledge) this is an incredibly incredibly rare situation that we don’t run into much. You have to have a very specific set of stipulations where it’s the very end of a match, the goalkeeper has left the goal area, a ball is rolling into a wide open net, a defender fails at a DOGSO and manages to get to the ball before it enters the net, and the attacker who was the victim of the failed DOGSO manages to also catch up to the defender and foul him away from preventing the ball rolling into the open net.
Not a ref but wanted to comment on the end of the Liverpool - City match. Just to get my biases out of the way I am a Liverpool fan. But having said that I think they came to the right decision, eventually. Here's the reality you can't ref on vibes. Dom clearly fouled Harland which allowed him to stay with him and force a weak shot. Then Dom was clearly fouled by Harlaand preventing him from stopping the goal. Lots of people are saying "let common sense rule" but here's the problem, one person's common sense is not another. You can't just ignore rules because it's the end of the match or you think it's funny. As other's have pointed out this could have bearing on the title race but even if it doesn't I think refs are obligated to enforce the rules regardless of what time of the game it is. The fact that Pawson just ignored the rules because they were inconvenient is pretty damming. But also par for the course for him.
I just want to share something here that absolutely floored me. Article was posted on Reddit soccer about guardiola saying that common sense should have prevailed, allow the goal, no red card, 3-1 everyone is happy And the comment section is actually universally backing the decision and throwing hate at gaurdiola for wanting laws to be consistent until it goes against his POV at which point they want the refs to bend the rules. For once a Reddit comment section supports the referee. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/yrNHjKAb8k
That is one way to look at it. You might also be able to say "as always, a Reddit comment section is disagreeable." "Pep is right" only gets so much engagement and is boring. People post on the internet because they disagree. I mean, look at this thread. And forum. And this post. Disagreement generates content. I'm relatively confident a hypothetical post about Mikael Arteta saying he's glad the goal was disallowed would generate plenty of comments about how Arteta was wrong and the "game's gone."
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/feb/09/liverpool-manchester-city-red-car-szoboszlai Free but requires registration. It seems like a reasonable perspective and echoes some of the points raised here about suspensions affecting the next match and goal differential affecting the title race. For whatever it's worth, I don't think it's as cut and dried as the author makes it out to be. I think the game is fundamentally designed to be played in an open and flowing manner and interruptions should be minimized. The consequences of "consistency" are fairly grating as many people here are noting; while technically correct a lot of these decisions just seem wrong. You can call that vibes based refereeing but I think on a more basic level this is recognizing the game is different than basketball, baseball or american football and trying to enforce a "rules are rules" approach doesn't really fit.
True but if there’s one thing Reddit gets behind, in all sports conversations, it’s trashing the refereeing. Especially when it comes to somewhat controversial decisions like this one. I know that in reality it is not controversial, but this situation that had a “common sense” option that was ignored was primed to be ridiculed by the viewing public. And it’s mostly getting supported as the tough but right decision.
I think both of the following can be true: 1. At the professional level, with VAR, this has to be a DOGSO red card and no goal. You can obviously let the first grab go to see if advantage materializes, but it doesn't. At that point, you can't ignore the second grab. So you give the red and a free kick. I think this is the better by-the-book answer. 2. In your local Sunday men's league match, no one from the scoring team is going to be upset if the goal is given. If the defender complains, you say "Listen, you grabbed him first, the ball went into the net anyway, do you really want to miss next Sunday's game?" The odds of one extra goal mattering for anything of consequence are slim. So the goal is scored, and if you get a mass confrontation from the defending team you either end the game immediately or right after the ensuing kickoff. Now, for us low-level refs, the only spot where I think this gets really tricky is if you have a game (maybe in a youth tournament or state league) where you know for a fact the one goal is going to change the tiebreakers, either for the teams involved or another team in the group. Then I think you probably have to go back to the technically correct answer of disallowing the goal and giving the red card. Is this a somewhat unsatisfying situation? I guess. I just think that realistically, at the grassroots level, the better common sense and spirit of the game answer is to allow the goal.
I agree. Though if the Haaland foul gets much more rough I think it does need to get called, which takes us back to this weird scenario. And I do think the evolution of the Laws and the use of VAR and how it is discussed has moved even lower level games into thinking more that there is always a right answer and away from accepting some level of judgment for the R. I think the general scenario also highlights one of the challenges of reffing our game. Because goals are so hard to come by. Here, the goal didn’t really matter to the game, but it easily could in somewhat similar scenarios.
What if you don’t know whether the goal difference matters? What if it’s too early in the season or you just don’t know the standings? Regardless, the suspension is still relevant. But I don’t think there’s any situation where ignoring these fouls is the right thing to do, even in the last minute of a 3-0 final. I can’t get around the argument that it’s ok just because everyone on the field feels happy (or at least, neutral) about it. This situation is, in principle, the same ethical problem as when men’s teams ask a referee to not report yellow cards after the game. You’re claiming that the referee should blatantly lie about what they’ve observed just because it makes everyone [who’s present] happier. Is it ok to lie about the facts of the game just because there are no negative consequences? Is it ok to fabricate or hide the facts of what really happened just because no one will know the truth? These aren’t the values that I would want to teach any young referee, or any young person for that matter.
To be sure the effort (?perhaps more in EPL than in other leagues) to make refereeing more empiric has been jarring and unpleasant. One wonders if there’s not a mandate here to take latitude away from the referee- there’s really no way pawson didn’t have perfect sight of all the contact. I know VAR must review potential reds, but what additional info (other than slo mo) did VAR provide Pawson? He was mindful of “what soccer would expect” and let it happen, and paid the price of being corrected by VAR. He couldn’t, for example, say to the VAR “dont send it down. I saw everything.” Sad days for epl referees.
The play was not, initially, reviewed for a possible send off. It was reviewed for a foul in the APP. Once there was a foul in the APP, the goal cannot stand, and then review considers the potential DOGSO/PK. As far as what Pawson saw on review that he didn't initially, it is possible that he initially considered any foul by H to have been trifling in context, and re-watching it convinced him he couldn't call it trifling. (If the defender was just a bit further back, I think trifling becomes a stronger argument if we can say the defender had no chance to get to the ball before it crossed the goal line.) (And, FWIW, the R technically can decline to do an OFR when recommended by the VAR. The VAR (technically) only recommends that the R do the review and only the R decides to do it. Of course, in practical terms, the R is not going to do that absent extremely unusual circumstances--I don't recall hearing it actually happen in any competition.)