Arda Güler's Goal Ruled Out: Was the Right Benfica Defender Used for the Offside Line?
Real Madrid fans are fuming after Arda Güler's goal was disallowed for a wafer-thin offside against Gonzalo — but was the correct Benfica defender used?
Real Madrid supporters are convinced they were done over by the officials after Arda Güler’s goal was chalked off for the narrowest of offsides — and the debate isn’t really about the margins, it’s about which Benfica defender the semi-automatic system actually used as its reference point.
What Actually Happened
The move itself was a proper bit of Madrid quality. Valverde got his head on it, Gonzalo battled for the ball, and it dropped perfectly for Güler — who was sharper than Benfica goalkeeper Trubin and slotted it into the net. Lovely stuff, or so it seemed.
The VAR then had a rummage through the footage, first checking whether there’d been a foul on the keeper. There hadn’t — Güler got there first, fair and square. So attention shifted to Gonzalo’s position at the moment the ball was played.
The Crux of It
The semi-automatic offside technology flagged Gonzalo as being fractionally ahead of the last Benfica defender — we’re talking millimetres here, the sort of margin that makes your eyes go funny staring at freeze-frames on your phone at half-past midnight.
But here’s where Madrid fans are losing their minds:
- The system appears to have used Araujo (No. 44) as the reference defender
- Yet Dedic (No. 17) looks, from the available images, to be behind his teammate at that exact moment
- If Dedic is the deeper of the two, he should be the one setting the offside line — and if that’s the case, Gonzalo might well be onside
The Fan Reaction
Social media went absolutely mental, as it tends to do. Madrid supporters were all over it, pointing out that the choice of Araujo rather than Dedic as the reference point is the actual issue here — not just the inevitable “it’s only a few centimetres” chat that always does the rounds when these decisions go against your team.
And look, they’ve got a point worth hearing. The whole premise of the semi-automatic system is that it’s precise and removes human error. But if the wrong player is selected as the last defender, then all that millimetre-level accuracy counts for absolutely nothing — you’re just being very precise about the wrong thing.
The Bigger Picture
This is the sort of decision that’ll linger. Real Madrid were already navigating a tricky European night against Benfica, and having a goal disallowed — particularly one where the officiating logic itself is being questioned — stings in a way that a clear offside simply doesn’t.
Whether La Liga or UEFA revisit the footage and offer any clarification remains to be seen. Don’t hold your breath, mind.
What’s clear is that the debate around semi-automatic offside is far from settled. The tech is only as good as the decisions made around it — and right now, plenty of people reckon one of those decisions was well off.