It came in the 94th minute of Sunday’s iconic Merseyside Derby. Steven Gerrard lined up for a free kick about 45 yards out, but in dead center of the pitch, making it quite difficult for a good kick into the penalty area. Gerrard delivered the ball in, it was headed in Luis Suarez’s direction who one-touched it into the back of the net.
Undoubtedly, the Liverpool winning goal as the stomach of every Toffee fan turns over. After all the fighting and clawing back from going down 2-0 after 20 minutes, they were going to steal the draw from their Liverpool city rivals. No! The off-side flag is up! The goal is disallowed and Luis Suarez is deemed off-sides.
The replay comes and shows: Not one Liverpool player is near off-sides. Suarez is clearly onside and the goal should stand. But, as the whistle is blown just a minute later, the match is deemed a draw.
Here’s a close-up of the non-goal:
Luis Suarez and Liverpool were robbed of a match-winning goal today at Goodison Park. This is just another mistake from a referee that will go down as another reason to bring up the question of instant replay to FIFA, the English Premier League and every football fan. Mistakes like this could be corrected. Does instant replay taint the sport or do grand mistakes like the Suarez non-goal taint them even more?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[…] the match, Javier Hernandez scored the game-winning goal in the 75th minute. But, similarly to the Luis Suarez non-goal of the earlier Everton – Liverpool match, a controversial off-side, on-side issue potentially ended the match with an ill feeling. In the […]