‘In an offside position’ – Doubts surround Cagliari’s opening goal against Milan

There seems to be some confusion regarding Cagliari’s first goal against AC Milan last night, and more specifically why an offside was not looked into.

It took just two minutes for the hosts to take the lead in the eventual 3-3 draw when a poor corner found its way to Zortea who fired past Mike Maignan. However, what has followed is question marks regarding the positioning of Luvumbo.

As the account Errori Arbitrali writes, Luvumbo seems to be beyond the last man (Camarda) because of his outstretched left leg. From the replay you can see that he is also in the line of sight of Maignan, who moves to the left.

In this situation the final choice should not be VAR overruling it but the VAR chief should call the referee over to look at it so he can determine to what extent he is influencing things.

The outcome is one of two things: the offside was checked and cleared (with no graphics for TV) or a serious error by the VAR chief Aureliano who did not consider Luvumbu to be impacting play.

Luca Marelli was in the DAZN studios and gave his thoughts on the situation, which were relayed by MilanNews.

“For Cagliari’s first goal, Luvumbo’s position seems to be beyond the last defender, and he is in Maignan’s line of vision. The Milan goalkeeper moves to the left to try to see something.

“Luvumbo is in an offside position in my opinion and is in a punishable position, which did not leave a line of vision to Maignan.

“If Luvumbo’s offside position is confirmed, it is a goal that should have been a goal disallowed for an active offside of the Cagliari player. The impact of the offside player on the goalkeeper should have been assessed.”