Lu 🏴‍☠️ 🏳️‍🌈

Some people don't seem to understand why everyone is so outraged about the 🇭🇷 Croatia vs. Portugal 🇵🇹 robbery, so let me explain. It's precisely because multiple things that would have lifted the offside were ignored, multiple things were handled differently than usual, and several suspicious details are present on top of it all. So it's both the factually false detection of a touch that wasn't there, AND the way it was handled, which raises even more suspicion: 1. Even if Matanović's head 🤯 touched the ball, it didn't change the trajectory -> no offside 2. Even if Matanović's hair 💇‍♂️ touched the ball, hair is excluded in the offside rulebook -> no offside 3. Even if he did touch it with force, Veiga still went for the ball deliberately -> no offside 4. Offside is normally never checked at the screen by the main ref. Normally the VAR sees Veiga's header on the first replay, says "ah, Portugal touched it, no offside," and that's the end of it. 5. No change of trajectory is visible on the ball. Instead of blindly trusting a questionable chip inside the ball, the ref could have trusted his own eyes -> goal stands 6. Letting a minuscule alleged touch that didn't affect the ball overturn one of the craziest goals in World Cup history is suspicious in and of itself. It hints at an agenda or bias by the refs and VAR. 7. The penalty given to Portugal was already a false decision. 8. FIFA using B-tier referees raises the suspicion that they're chosen deliberately: a ref without a big name is more likely to enforce the rules to the letter, out of fear that FIFA won't invite him (and pay him) at the next tournament. A big refereeing name would at least have the courage to decide by feel for the game. 9. Previous games where Ronaldo was already helped by the refereeing. 10. The observation that rules are applied far more strictly against small nations than against the big names. 11. Semi-automated offside tech was sold to us as eliminating human error. Instead, a sensor blip that nobody can see with their own eyes was used to overrule what everybody COULD see. If the technology can't be verified by the footage, the footage should win. 12.FIFA is visibly willing to trade away trust and raw emotion (nobody can celebrate a goal anymore before the check period is over, fans get fed up and stop watching because of this BS) in exchange for control over outcomes, because keeping the biggest names in the tournament as long as possible is what makes their commercial goals easily reachable.