{"id":46629,"date":"2017-09-03T21:42:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T01:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=46629"},"modified":"2017-09-03T21:42:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T01:42:00","slug":"the-curious-case-of-the-goal-that-wasnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=46629","title":{"rendered":"The Curious Case of the Goal that Wasn&#8217;t"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width='600' height='480' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen src='https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/iframe-video?ooyala_id=8zOHZpYzE6_lvyYtG_Au0gcRsU1U_Pqz&#038;partner_code=V3dTcxOgz_2CW8ZIY8iy58lLBNvQ&#038;player_id=2d940881487848159b3b99a3ae8125b9'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>FOXBOROUGH, Mass. &#8211; It&#8217;s fair to say few, if any, of the 17,865 on hand for Saturday&#8217;s Revolution-Orlando City match had ever witnessed anything like what unfolded in the 43rd minute.<\/p>\n<p>With the hosts ahead 1-0, Teal Bunbury connected with Lee Nguyen deep in Orlando City territory before the latter blasted a beautiful ball through to make it a 2-0 match. Or so everyone thought &#8211; including referee Robert Sibiga.<\/p>\n<p>But well after the handshakes were exchanged and the Lions restarted, Sibiga inconspicuously waved off the goal after video assistant referee (VAR) Mark Geiger &#8211; yes, <em>that<\/em> Mark Geiger, Revs fans &#8211; reviewed the play, which showed Bunbury was about 10 yards offside before he put himself in position to retrieve Chris Tierney&#8217;s long ball.<\/p>\n<p>For a good minute or so, the players, the coaching staff, the fans, and even the Musket Men, whose rifle fire often confirms a good strike, were puzzled. <\/p>\n<p>No goal. Yeah, awkward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn\u2019t realize when they actually take away a goal that was that long and we celebrated and we got back to position,&#8221; Revolution coach Jay Heaps said. &#8220;Then it was a really quick, oh, goal didn\u2019t count, and we\u2019re on to the next play. So, there\u2019s not a lot of time to digest that. Those are tough moments.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, had Nguyen&#8217;s strike counted, the Revolution would&#8217;ve marched into the break with a healthy lead rather than holding a narrow margin. And the timing of it &#8211; moments before the halftime whistle &#8211; could&#8217;ve given the hosts an added boost.<\/p>\n<p>But it was not meant to be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s that love\/hate relationship with VAR,&#8221; Nguyen quipped. &#8220;But it was the right decision, and we have to accept it but hey, it goes both ways.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, it&#8217;s easy to shrug off the goal that wasn&#8217;t when the final score is 4-0 in your favor. Well, that and the fact that the VAR got it right. <\/p>\n<p>Even so, Heaps said the awkward call to redesignate the score mentally tested his team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s an added element of being able to deal with the ups and downs of a game and there are a lot of them in every game,&#8221; Heaps said. &#8220;But this one, it\u2019s the first time it happened to us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Despite having to wait until the 75th minute for the Revolution score a legit second goal, Heaps liked the way his team responded to the officiating hiccup. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought our guys rallied,&#8221; Heaps said. &#8220;I think getting in at halftime and having a moment to be able to talk about it and get ourselves ready. Say hey, look we\u2019re back in this. We had a really good talk at halftime. Guys were really engaged.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Heaps maintained his support for VAR after the match, which is consistent with the coach&#8217;s longheld belief in replay getting it right, though he did call Nguyen&#8217;s non-goal &#8220;a gut punch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for Nguyen, well, he didn&#8217;t sound like a guy who&#8217;d lose any sleep about his first-class finish going to waste. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll take it as long as we get that 4-0 win anyway,&#8221; Nguyen said with a laugh. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VAR hated on Lee Nguyen&#8217;s 43rd minute strike. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[891,107,1109,888,892,1687],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Musket-men.png?fit=600%2C415&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46629"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46640,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46629\/revisions\/46640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}