VAR call for England's spot-kick in Euro semi-final was just ridiculous. The referee's decision was inexplicable! By Stephen Mcgowan For The Scottish Daily Mail Published: 22:48 BST, 10 July 2024 | Updated: 22:48 BST, 10 July 2024 e-mail View comments Euro 2024 should have been the tournament when VAR finally won over a few sceptics. Quick semi-automated offside decisions.
Just the one iffy handball decision against Germany. Scotland were so bad, even the Tartan Army were prepared to overlook that late Stuart Armstrong shout against Hungary. You can’t keep a rampant attention seeker out of the headlines for long, however.
Like one of those professional trolls addicted to being wrong about everything in the quest for likes and retweets, VAR craved a bit of attention. It needed people to sit up and take notice. Battered from pillar to post for the timing and quality of his substitutions, Gareth Southgate made two brave calls here.
And, to the England manager’s enormous credit, Cole Palmer and Ollie Watkins provided spectacular vindication. None of that alters an inconvenient truth likely to be overlooked in the hype and hysteria of the days between now and Sunday, of course. After falling a goal down to an early Xavi Simons strike for the Netherlands, England were gifted parity by the most inexplicable VAR intervention of Euro 2024.
It was a piece of game-changing folly. Before a ball was kicked, Jude Bellingham and co harboured concerns over referee Felix Zwayer after a si.
