One of closest offside calls you’ll see leads to disallowed goal

Venezia’s Gaetano Oristanio had a goal disallowed on Sunday during their 2-1 win against Cagliari for what is arguably one of the closest offside calls that Serie A has ever seen.

The offensive midfielder set up Francesco Zampano’s opener in the first half and thought to have doubled his side’s lead shortly after the break, only to see his net disallowed due to an offside position from his teammate Joel Pohjanpalo.

Tight offside leads to Venezia disallowed goal against Cagliari

Referees needed the help of technology to make the right call with images from the SAOT (Semi-Automatic Offside Technology) showing that a stud of Pohjanpalo’s trailing boot was beyond the last Cagliari defender when the Finnish striker received the ball with his back to goal, before giving it to Oristanio.

A youth product of Inter with a stint at Cagliari last season, the 22-year-old had refused to celebrate the goal scored against his former side before understanding it was ruled out.

https://x.com/niccoristo/status/1870854665597808983

However, defender Marin Sverko still scored Venezia’s second a few minutes later, with the visitors failing to complete a late comeback despite Leonardo Pavoletti’s goal.