{"id":467430,"date":"2026-02-09T00:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T00:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467430\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T00:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T00:24:09","slug":"dominik-szoboszlai-red-card-did-ref-and-var-in-liverpool-v-man-city-get-haaland-drama-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467430\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominik Szoboszlai red card: Did ref and VAR in Liverpool v Man City get Haaland drama right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Alisson marooned upfield for a set-piece as Liverpool<\/a> searched for a late equaliser, Rayan Cherki kicked the ball towards an empty net from just inside his own half.<\/p>\n

Haaland gave chase and was clearly going to outpace Dominik Szoboszlai.<\/p>\n

The City striker had overtaken Szoboszlai 25 yards from goal and looked certain to win the race – but he was pulled back.<\/p>\n

It was a clear foul which referee Craig Pawson identified, but he played an advantage.<\/p>\n

As the ball rolled towards the goal with the same two players still jostling to reach it, Liverpool<\/a>‘s Hungary international was about to slide in and clear it off the line.<\/p>\n

Before Szoboszlai could do so, however, Haaland pulled him back, and that stopped the home player from keeping the ball out of the net.<\/p>\n

The first pull on the Norway striker muddies the waters. After all, it seemed Haaland was definitely going to score.<\/p>\n

But they are two distinct situations. You have to separate the first foul by Szoboszlai and the subsequent offence from Haaland.<\/p>\n

Would Szoboszlai have prevented the goal had he not been fouled? There is a high chance.<\/p>\n

On that basis it is impossible for the goal to stand.<\/p>\n

Remember that Pawson played advantage. Had Szoboszlai been allowed to successfully keep the ball out, the play would have been brought back and he would have been sent off.<\/p>\n

The end result would be the same as the outcome of the VAR intervention: no goal and Szoboszlai sent off for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.<\/p>\n

If you take out the first pull on Haaland, it is hard to see how anyone could have a problem with the goal being disallowed.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time, or the last, that the VAR has correctly disallowed a goal and people really struggle to stomach it.<\/p>\n

Yes, the goal could be important for Manchester City<\/a> at the end of the season. But the goal conceded could also turn out to be vital for Liverpool<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Alisson marooned upfield for a set-piece as Liverpool searched for a late equaliser, Rayan Cherki kicked the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-467430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}