The Communication Breakdown That Explains Osasuna's Controversial Winner Against Real Madrid
A breakdown in communication between the on-field referee and the VAR room explains the bizarre double-stop before Osasuna's 90th-minute winner was given.
The goal that sent El Sadar absolutely mental on Sunday night is still making waves — and rightly so, because what happened in those chaotic final minutes was genuinely bizarre.
So What Actually Happened?
Raúl García de Haro’s 90th-minute header looked like it had been chalked off when referee Alejandro Quintero González initially disallowed it. Standard stuff — tight offside call, VAR having a butcher’s. But then the game restarted, stopped again two seconds later, and ultimately the goal was given. Cue absolute chaos.
Here’s the breakdown of events:
- The goal is disallowed on the pitch while the VAR room, with Jorge Figueroa Vázquez in the chair, begins reviewing the call
- It’s an incredibly tight offside decision — Raúl is only just onside — so they need to find the exact frame for the semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) to do its thing
- Communication between Quintero and the VAR room breaks down momentarily
- Quintero, believing the review is done, restarts play
- The VAR room immediately signals that the review is still ongoing
- Quintero stops the game again — just two seconds later — to make sure the correct decision gets made
What Were Madrid Saying?
Vinicius, who was captaining the side at that point, used the second stoppage to have a moan at Quintero about the three minutes of added time. Poor timing, mate. Quintero had absolutely zero interest in that conversation — he was laser-focused on what Figueroa Vázquez was about to tell him.
Brahim Díaz and Mbappé both clocked that once play had restarted, technically it shouldn’t have been stopped again, and they made sure to let the referee know. Quintero’s response? That it had been “a confusion” — which, fair enough, it clearly was.
There’s Actually a Precedent for This
Here’s the thing that makes this less of a one-off scandal and more of a known quirk in how referees operate: it’s happened before, and Real Madrid were involved that time too.
Back on 18 May 2025, in Sevilla’s 0-2 home defeat to Madrid, Isaac Romero was sent off after play had already resumed. Romero had gone in hard on Tchouaméni, the referee initially showed yellow, play restarted — and then it was stopped again after the VAR invited the referee to review the monitor, ultimately resulting in a red.
The protocol is clear that VAR cannot intervene once play restarts. But there are exceptions:
- Serious off-ball incidents that come to light after the restart can still be reviewed
- Communication failures between the VAR room and the on-field referee have, in specific cases, led to referees stopping play again — on the basis that getting a clear and obvious incident right outweighs the fact that a new phase of play has technically begun
It’s not pretty, and it’s easy to see why Madrid are fuming. But it’s not entirely without precedent either. The system worked, eventually — it just looked an absolute shambles getting there.