This maddening World Cup final won by Argentina on Sunday against France (3-3, 4-2 on penalties) did not need an additional ingredient to settle into football legend.

And yet, here is one, unearthed by the influential English media SPORTbible and relayed by L'Equipe: the Albiceleste's third goal, in the 108th minute, was not valid.

Flashback (painful, yes, we know): after a magnificent three-way action with Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez, Lionel Messi takes a shot from the Inter Milan striker repelled by Hugo Lloris.

Jules Koundé clears the ball, but behind the goal line.

Nothing to say ... Except that on a wider view, we can clearly see two Argentine substitutes entering - slightly - on the lawn, while the "Pulga" has just struck and the ball has not yet entered Lloris's cages .


Argentina subs on the pitch before the ball went in, any rule on this #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/NSCFIgxxhI

— Ian Corcorān🔰 (@IanCorcoran_) December 18, 2022

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

I ACCEPT

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.



These intrusions constitute a violation of the law 3, paragraph 9 of the IFAB (International football association board) which governs this sport: "If, after a goal is scored, the referee realizes before the resumption of play that an extra person was on the pitch when the goal was scored: the referee must disallow the goal if the extra person was: a player, substitute, substituted player, sent off player or team official who scored the goal;

play must be restarted with a direct free kick from the place where the extra person was.

»



In other words, Messi's second goal in the game should have been canceled by Polish referee Szymon Marciniak, and the Blues got away with a free kick 35 meters from their cages, glued to the right sideline.  

Overall light arbitration during this World Cup

In real life, France recovered (again) after this hammer blow by equalizing on penalty by Kylian Mbappé in the 117th minute, after an action where Dayot Upamecano seems on certain slow motions to commit a good hand .

Before falling on penalties.

But this new incident sums up the impression of great lightness left by the refereeing from one end to the other of this World Cup.

Sport

France-Argentina: Could Deschamps leave on this defeat in the World Cup final?

Sport

France - Argentina: Drawn features, dark eyes... How will Mbappé recover from this lost final?

  • Sport

  • World Cup 2022

  • Soccer

  • France football team

  • Argentina

  • Lionel Messi

  • Arbitration

  • Qatar