UEFA Nations League: 3 reasons why England lost to the Netherlands

#2 VAR strikes again

Jesse Lingard was unfortunate to see his winning goal chalked off by VAR for offside

In the first Nations League semi-final between Portugal and Switzerland, VAR played its role as the Swiss were awarded a penalty despite the referee initially pointing to the spot in favour of Portugal, but in the end, it didn’t matter as Cristiano Ronaldo settled the game. Tonight though, the VAR system fell in favour of the Netherlands and arguably cost England the game.

A beautiful counter move in the last ten minutes ended with Ross Barkley playing Jesse Lingard through on goal, and the Manchester United man slotted past keeper Jasper Cillessen and into the net. It looked like England had won the game – only for the referee to chalk off the goal as VAR decided Lingard was offside.

In all honesty, the replays seemed to be inconclusive, but evidently, Lingard must’ve been millimetres off for the system to disallow the goal. To be quite frank, without VAR the referee almost certainly would’ve given Lingard the benefit of the doubt – and England would be facing Portugal instead of Switzerland on Sunday.

VAR will take a lot of getting used to as it’s introduced at the top level throughout football, and no doubt this won’t be the only time the system will cost England – and of course, in the future, it might help them too. But tonight there can be no question that it had a part to play in the Netherlands’ victory.