You’re going to be hearing about this for a long, long, loooonnnng time
How’s your heart? Probably broken into thousands of tiny, tiny pieces if you’re a Manchester City supporter.
If the VAR related drama that unfolded in the final seconds wasn’t already hard enough for City fans to stomach, what follows most definitely will be.
Remember the other big VAR call of the night? For what proved to be the tie-winning goal from Fernando Llorente? Yeah, that.
After checking monitors, Cüneyt Çakır ruled the ball didn’t come off Llorente’s arm before the ball found its way into City’s goal. To be completely fair to the Turkish referee, it was easy to see why he arrived at this decision given the camera angles that were shown to him during the VAR review.
There is, however, another camera angle – one that didn’t feature in that review. And in it, as you’ve probably guessed, it shows the ball did indeed touch Llorente’s arm before being diverted in off his hip.
Though it would have been incredibly harsh to rule that Llorente intentionally handled it, the footage is already making plenty of waves on Twitter.
VAR will never be successful if idiots are using it.
The best replay that shows the ball hitting Llorente's arm, wasn't even shown to the referee.#MCITOT #UCL pic.twitter.com/f4RlQDR6lf
— Atishay Agarwal (@sportsontoast) April 17, 2019
Tottenham’s win means they progress to face Ajax for a place in the Champions League final. Should they progress against a young Dutch side who have already eliminated reigning champions Real Madrid and a much-fancied Juventus side, they’ll face the winners of Liverpool and Barcelona in Madrid.
