If you've been following the World Cup, you might know that perennial favourites Germany crashed out in the early rounds yesterday. Although they beat Costa Rica 4-2, they had to win AND Japan had to lose for them to go through, and Japan shocked the world by beating Spain 2-1.
But what a contentious winning Japanese goal! Most people saw Japan bring the ball back into play from over the dead-ball line before stuffing it into the net. Social media lit up with outrage over the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) decision to allow the goal. But it turns out the VAR was quite right.
The reason? Parallax. A ball viewed from the side can look like it is fully out of bounds, but seen from above, it can look quite different. In this case, a view from above shows that not ALL of the ball was over the line, and soccer rules clearly dictate that 100% of the ball has to cross the line to be considered out.
That's also why Canada was denied a goal in their last World Cup game against Morocco, as the ball bounced down off the crossbar in the 71st minute, but failed to cross the line, although this one was much less contentious.
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