By Theo Van Zyl
VAR stole the headlines in an otherwise unentertaining match between France and the Netherlands on Friday.
Having both won their opening group games, Netherlands and France promised to be an exciting showdown between two highly favoured teams in this year’s European Championships.
Despite beating Austria, France lost their star striker Kylian Mbappe to injury. The French forward collided with Kevin Danso, breaking his nose.
With France’s best player on the bench, the prospect of a victory for The Oranje looked more likely.
A Mbappe-less France needed more clinical edge in their attack, with Antione Griezemann guilty of missing a handful of good opportunities.
Although both sides had goalscoring opportunities, the first half ended 0-0.
The major talking point of the game came in the 69th minute when Xavi Simons found the back of the French net, causing huge celebrations on the Dutch bench.
But when Simons and his teammates turned back to the pitch they saw that the assistant referee had put his flag up for offside.
As Simons took the shot, Denzel Dumfries, who was standing in an offside position, was ruled to have impeded Maignan’s ability to dive for the ball, which nestled in the bottom right corner.
Speaking on BBC, Newcastle and Blackburn legend Alan Shearer thought France were lucky to have had the goal by Simons disallowed.
“With that body position he’s in now the goalkeeper cannot dive and he’s not getting to that ball and Dumfries is not affecting him at all.”
Manchester United and England legend Wayne Rooney agreed saying “There’s no way that should be disallowed in my opinion. I think it’s a goal.”
The result leaves both teams with four points going into their final group games.
The Netherlands will need to avoid defeat against Austria on Wednesday to guarantee qualification to the knockout stages.
France will have the same task against Poland, who are behind the Netherlands in second place because they have scored fewer goals.
Pictured above: Xavi Simmons.
Source: X
