The Portugal vs Croatia FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match saw VAR take centre stage with four disallowed goals. None was more controversial than the last. With the scoreline reading 2-1, Croatia were staring elimination in the face when Ivan Perisic whipped in a cross from the left flank. The ball ricocheted off the head of Portugal defender Renato Veiga and found its way to the back post, where Mario Pasalic squared it for the onrushing Josko Gvardiol to score.
But after a lengthy check, the goal was chalked off. VAR ruled that striker Igor Matanovic had touched the ball before it found Pasalic. The midfielder had not been offside from Perisic’s initial cross, but he was offside from Matanovic’s contact.
Even though video replays showed no discernible contact and no change in the trajectory of the crossed ball, VAR used data from the Connected Ball Technology sensors housed within the match ball to determine that there indeed had been contact. The result was a disallowed goal and a Croatian elimination from the World Cup.
The technology has drawn comparisons to cricket’s “Snickometer” technology, which also discerns contact through audio when there is no conclusive video proof. But while Snicko uses audio from microphones, the VAR CBT uses data from “IMU sensors housed within the Trionda ball”, which are “displayed to viewers in the broadcast as a ‘heartbeat graphic’”, said FIFA via a statement on X.
This was the second instance of the “Snicko” technology being used by VAR in this tournament. Sweden’s Mattias Svenberg had a disallowed goal overturned after VAR determined a touch by Alexander Isak in the buildup had played him onside.
Ironically, the most notable instance of the CBT was at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022, where a Cristiano Ronaldo-headed goal was awarded to Bruno Fernandes after a check revealed that the striker had not touched the midfielder’s goal-bound cross.
Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic was heavily critical of VAR for ‘killing the emotion’ of the sport.
“It’s not great when you concede a goal in added time, then you race and score in the last minute, and you think it’s a goal and VAR decides otherwise. It’s really difficult to handle; the players are having a hard time. Emotions have been literally killed, and all these decisions take the joy out of it. VAR can sometimes be of help, but it kills the emotion. It kills whatever is in you, and it’s not easy to deal with. Football should be fair, but we’ve gone too far with VAR.”
Dalic was also displeased with the refereeing, saying, “Nothing went our way, not a single foul, not a single decision, nothing was favourable for us.”
Portugal coach Roberto Martínez, though, said there could be no disputing the decision.
“The balls now have a chip in them, and it is clear why VAR intervened. All the decisions were correct today; the penalty [for Portugal] was clear. It’s a shame that one of the two teams had to lose, but there were no bad decisions or lucky calls. Today we were fortunate, and the technology helped.”
