The World Cup group stage can be a cruel place. Just ask Vinicius Jr, who thought he’d bagged a second goal for Brazil against Scotland on Tuesday night, only to have it snatched away by a VAR review that left everyone arguing.
Scotland was already down 1-0 in Miami after seven minutes. Scott McKenna made a mess of things, Vini Jr pounced, and it looked like a long night for Steve Clarke’s squad. Then came the 22nd minute. Jack Hendry had the ball near his own box, tried to play it out, and Vini Jr came flying in to nick it off him. The finish was clean, a smooth strike into the net. Vini Jr celebrated. Brazil was up 2-0. Or so they thought.
The referee, Mexico’s Cesar Ramos, got a call from the VAR room. He went to the monitor. When he came back, he’d decided Vini Jr fouled Hendry in the process of making the tackle. Specifically, the Brazilian’s leg caught Hendry’s before he got to the ball. The goal was wiped out. Scotland’s tournament life, hanging by a thread, got a sudden reprieve.
The reaction was split right down the middle. BBC rules expert Darren Cann, a former Premier League assistant, said Ramos got it wrong. “I think Scotland are a little fortunate to be honest,” Cann said on the broadcast. “There is a small contact before the ball is played but I don’t really feel it is a foul by Vini Jr. He’s just holding his ground and the defender just kicks into him.”
But James McFadden, the former Scotland international working the game as a co-commentator, saw it differently. “No I don’t, I think it’s a foul,” McFadden said when asked if he agreed with Cann. “Whether it’s a slight contact or not, it’s a foul. When you see it back, clearly he gets caught when he’s in the action of kicking the ball, which is enough to stop him being able to kick the ball. He’s impeded.”
Lucas Leiva, the ex-Brazil midfielder working as a studio pundit for BBC, sided with Cann. “For me it’s not a foul, great press, it could be 2-0,” he said. Rachel Corsie, the Scotland women’s captain, took the opposite view: “I think the argument is the contact is made before Vini touches the ball, he’s not in control of the ball, he contacts the Scotland player first, it’s incredibly fortunate.”
If the call was meant to rattle Vini Jr, it backfired badly. The Real Madrid star channeled his anger into the game and scored a legitimate header from close range right before halftime. That made it 2-0 for real, leaving Scotland staring at a possible early exit. The format change for this World Cup — eight of the 12 third-place finishers advance to the last 32 — meant Scotland still had a narrow path forward. But their hopes were suddenly a lot thinner than they’d been 20 minutes earlier.
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