You’ll never believe why FIFA allowed Japan’s controversial winning goal against Spain

It mainly revolves around the fact it was a perfectly legitimate Japan goal, even if it does predictably have one weary England supporter panicking.

Why fronts
Mediawatch understands completely why these headlines exist…

‘Why controversial Japan goal stood despite no part of the ball touching line vs Spain’ – Daily Mirror website.

‘Why Japan’s winning goal against Spain at World Cup was allowed to stand by VAR’ – London Evening Standard.

‘Why Var allowed Japan’s goal to stand, what the rules say and why it mattered’ – Daily Telegraph.

‘Why Japan goal that knocked Germany out of the World Cup was given by VAR’ – Liverpool Echo.

‘Why Japan’s second goal against Spain was allowed to stand’ – The Guardian.

‘Explained: Why Japan’s second goal against Spain was controversially allowed by VAR despite ball appearing to be out of play’ – Goal.com.

‘Why Japan’s winning goal vs. Spain was awarded by the VAR after the ball appeared to go out’ – ESPN.

But when the answer is ‘because the ball was still in play’, the couple of hundred earnest explainers about curvature and the like start to feel a little redundant.

And by the way, this point still stands when it comes to quoting former officials saying the exact same thing:

‘Former Premier League referees explain why Japan’s goal that eliminated Germany stood despite ball appearing to go out of play’ – Metro.

‘Referee explains why controversial goal in Japan v Spain game stood despite ball appearing to be out of play – WalesOnline.

But it is funny to see local news outlets fall over themselves trying to mop up some of that sweet World Cup SEO nectar in between scrambling around for spurious updates to their live transfer blogs.

Mike drop
Not that the MailOnline are above it. This headline is begging to be clicked:

”It’s sheer incompetence’: There is no proof that VAR should have awarded Japan’s controversial winner that ended up sending Germany home, Sportsmail’s Mike Keegan tells WORLD CUP CONFIDENTIAL’

This despite there being proof if you have functional eyes. But Mike Keegan is not having it.

“These things were brought in to eradicate human error,” he says. “And yet it’s a system that is still run by humans, so how does that work?”

Much like it did on Thursday evening, when the technology eradicated human error by allowing a perfectly legitimate Japan goal.

“I dread to think, you know, my life as an England follower…