{"id":692770,"date":"2026-07-15T10:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692770\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:11:14","slug":"world-cup-2026-reaction-as-spain-stun-favourites-france-to-reach-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692770\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Reaction as Spain stun favourites France to reach final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why the referee overturned France&#8217;s free-kickpublished at 10:50 BST<\/p>\n<p>10:50 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">France 0-2 Spain<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/58b52225-f56a-4b3b-bd61-1f10dfd2100e.jpg.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Dale Johnson<br \/>Football issues correspondent<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Did the video assistant referee really tell the referee to cancel a free-kick just before half-time?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We see something like this several times a season. As usual, there is a much simpler explanation. Here is what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ousmane Dembele ran into Fabian Ruiz on the edge of the box, with referee Ivan Barton giving the free-kick to France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But a few seconds later the referee changed his mind, and restarted with a dropped ball to Spain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was a confusing situation, so you cannot blame people for thinking the VAR was involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The assistant on the far side of the field, Antonio Pupiro, had told the referee he had made a mistake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On the replays you see Barton point towards Pupiro before changing the restart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">France coach Didier Deschamps was pictured in conversation with the other assistant, David Moran, who also pointed to the far side of the pitch to Pupiro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">You are far more likely to see a referee take an assistant&#8217;s advice before giving a decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is exceptionally rare to see a referee cancel a free-kick decision after they have given it. Usually a referee just owns it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fabian Ruiz and Ousmane Dembele react\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/b76a1371-86dd-4b65-8a08-1c3930fa4247.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why the referee overturned France&#8217;s free-kickpublished at 10:50 BST 10:50 BST France 0-2 Spain Dale JohnsonFootball issues correspondent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-692770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}