Wayne Rooney has never been one to mince his words, and after witnessing Davinson Sanchez have a perfectly good goal chalked off for Colombia against...
Wayne Rooney has never been one to mince his words, and after witnessing Davinson Sanchez have a perfectly good goal chalked off for Colombia against Portugal, the England legend let rip. Speaking exclusively to GoalZaza, Rooney expressed his sheer disbelief and frustration at the decision, which saw the defender ruled offside by the width of a toenail. It was a moment that left the stadium stunned and reignited a debate that simply refuses to go away.Let's be clear about what happened here. Sanchez, a centre half by trade, had ghosted into the box and met a free kick with a powerful header that beat the Portuguese goalkeeper all ends up. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. A goal scored from a set piece, the kind of scrappy, hard fought effort that defines World Cup football. But then came the VAR check. And then came the freeze frame. And then the lines were drawn, pixel thin, determining that Sanchez's toes were ahead of the last defender by a matter of millimetres. The goal was gone. The points were gone. And for Rooney, so too was any remaining patience with the technology.Now, I have been around long enough to remember the days before VAR. And I have seen enough football to know that we all wanted a system to stop the clear and obvious errors. But this, this was not a clear and obvious error. This was a triumph of technology over common sense. When a striker like Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappe is lauded for their predatory instinct, for knowing how to hang on the shoulder of the last man, we are talking about fractions of a second. A toe, an armpit, a trailing leg. These are not the margins that define whether a player has gained an unfair advantage. They are the margins of nature. The human body is not a machine, and football is not a computer simulation.Rooney's outburst comes from a place of genuine love for the game. He is not a dinosaur who hates progress, but he is a man who understands that football's soul lies in its flow, its rhythm, and its moments of chaotic brilliance. To stop the game for this, to run to a monitor and draw lines on an image taken from a camera angle that cannot possibly be 100% accurate, is to rob the sport of its very essence. It is a perfect example of the law becoming an ass. Did that goal make any difference to the competitive balance of the match Absolutely not. Sanchez did not cheat. He got his head on the ball and put it in the net. That should be the end of it.The real question for FIFA now is simple. Do we want a technically perfect game where every single goal is dissected down to the last atom, or do we want a football match Because right now, the two are becoming mutually exclusive. If the governing bodies continue down this path, if they continue to allow these microscopic rulings to decide major tournaments, they will eventually kill the spontaneity that makes this game the greatest on earth. Rooney has called them out. He has called for them to get rid of the whole system. And I, for one, am starting to think he might be right.
