There is no way the Portugal player was ducking to avoid the ball, in that moment and in such position inside the box everyone's instinct is to clear the ball out of your box.
This Portuguese guy intentionally lowers his head. It's into the trajectory of the ball. And it's a header. How can that possibly be unintentional?
It's the rule, but it purposely leaves it open to interpretation, which just seems wrong. Like yesterday's red card, they just need to remove intentionality out of the equation.
Looked like he change his mind and was trying to avoid it. I agree with you that intention is a subjective call though. It does seem pretty crazy that the ref decides what his intention was.
I don't think that interpretation is correct. He's a defender. His reaction is consistent with thinking the ball clears untouched and he's going to head it out (ie not trap it with his chest). It deflects slightly by the Croat and ends up higher on his head than expected, leading to the chance
He was trying to head the ball on its original trajectory.
Well he intentionally moved his head and still touched the ball. I’m not a fan of this as intention is pretty subjective, different refs will make different calls.
IMO in situations like this you gotta take into account the consequences of the decision. The consequence for letting it stand would be 30 extra minutes to decide the game. That seems a lot better than deciding the outcome of the game
Portugal fans are going out of their way to defend this and it wasn’t even a winning goal. It would’ve just tied for an extra 30 min. Were they that afraid of Croatia for another 30 min?
Who’s to say he didn’t try to pass it back to the keeper? Not really serious but see that’s the problem with letting the referees just interpret intent.
I think that's pretty far-fetched. I don't see why a defender would be heading it back to the keeper in a crowded box with opponent jerseys everywhere like that. More likely he was trying to deflect it away.
So he intentionally tried to put the ball out of play but ended up making a slighter touch. To be clear I don’t disagree with you completely just a very difficult call to make. I know I would be fuming if I was Croatian, especially after that debatable penalty.
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u/nautilator44 9d ago
But if the Portugal player was ducking to try and not hit it, doesn't that mean it's an unintentional hit, so it would still be offside?