Search icon

Football

28th Jan 2018

Nobody had a clue what was going on after Bernardo Silva found the net

WTF?

Darragh Murphy

Well that was a strange moment.

Confusion reigned in the first half of Manchester City’s FA Cup fourth round clash at Cardiff City on Sunday afternoon.

Kevin De Bruyne opened the scoring after just eight minutes with a genius free kick as he anticipated the entire Cardiff wall’s jump and slid the ball under their studs and into the back of the net.

It was starting to look like a long day at the office for the hosts as Pep Guardiola’s side continued to rampage forward at will.

The visitors seemed to take a 2-0 lead when Bernardo Silva rocketed home an unsaveable strike into the top right corner of the goal and began celebrating the breathing room he’d just put between the sides.

Great goal, right?

Wrong!

The linesman’s flag bizarrely went up and when referee Lee Mason went over to consult his assistant, asking why the goal should be disallowed, he was convinced to rule out the terrific strike.

The rationale for disallowing the goal was that Leroy Sane was adjudged to have been in an offside position (which he definitely wasn’t) and interfering with play (which he definitely wasn’t).

Nobody had a bloody clue what was going on as the BBC commentary team initially noted that the referee had overruled his linesman’s decision and began discussing the 2-0 scoreline, despite the fact that the game was restarted via a Cardiff free kick rather than a kick-off from the centre circle.

With VAR not in use for the game, technology couldn’t be blamed for the bizarre decision.