Gvardiol's Disallowed Goal Eliminates Croatia and Triggers Dalic's Fury

Croatia exits the World Cup following an arbitration decision that has sparked outrage: Josko Gvardiol’s goal, scored in the final seconds against Portugal (2-1), was annulled by VAR for offside, denying the Vatreni an equalizer and a likely extra time.

The scenario unfolded late in the match. Trailing since the start of added time on a goal by Gonçalo Ramos, Croatia thought they had secured a draw through Gvardiol, following an action initiated by a long cross from Ivan Perisic from the left. But Norwegian referee Espen Eskas was called to the monitor by VAR, which relied on data from the sensor embedded in the ball to determine that Igor Matanovic had grazed the ball with the tips of his hair before the decisive pass from Mario Pasalic — who was in an offside position at the moment of the cross. “The Croatian number 20 touched the ball. Final decision: offside,” Eskas ruled after reviewing the images and consulting the sensor data.

Matanovic himself admitted to “feeling a slight contact with the hair,” but his coach Zlatko Dalic was not appeased. “The refereeing was catastrophic. The decisions were one-sided. It’s shameful. VAR annulled three of our goals. We couldn’t do anything,” he said at the post-match press conference.

The Croatian press relayed the same indignation with unambiguous language: “A technological crime,” “the referee broke our dream” or “Eliminated by the referee, not by Portugal.” These reactions illustrate the frustration of a team that believes it was penalized by the very precision of the tools meant to guarantee fairness — a sensor capable of detecting contact of a few millimeters in a player’s hair.

The question raised by this elimination goes beyond the Croatian context alone: how far should technology impose itself over the spirit of the game and the notion of meaningful contact? FIFA, which deployed the connected ball for the first time on a large scale during this World Cup, has not commented on the controversy so far.