Marco van Basten was annoyed this weekend by the way the offside rule is currently being applied by the VAR. The former top striker advocates for change. The trigger was a disallowed goal by Napoli defender Amir Rrahmani, who was offside by a toe.
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The decision had no impact on the result against Atalanta, as Napoli eventually won with goals from Khvicha Kharatskhelia and Ejif Elmas (1-2).
However, Van Basten was quite agitated on Sunday evening around the Italian top match between Juventus and Internazionale (1-1), particularly about the incident, after earlier that day in the Premier League goals were also disallowed in Tottenham Hotspur - Aston Villa (1-2) due to marginal offside.
In England, they are already fed up with the minutes-long VAR interruptions. Van Basten, often outspoken when it comes to rule changes, is also part of that group. 'That is really to cry about,' said the 59-year-old former international. 'This is just a beautiful goal. Isn't this ridiculous? He's not offside compared to that defender, is he? How can it be that offside is still given? When you see this, isn't that unfair?'
Before the introduction of VAR, the attacking side was given the benefit in such situations. Former Arsenal coach Arsène Wenger advocates for a modification of the rule, to prevent VAR from constantly looking for that one millimeter offside: it should only be offside if the attacker is entirely beyond the defender. Van Basten had also suggested this in the past. 'Of course, the discussion will still be there, but you will have many more goals'. This is just a waste.
Updated: 10:26, 27 Nov 2023
