Red Bull Leipzig did not come out to speculate against Real Madrid in the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League played on German soil and was very close to finding the goal prize very early, in the 2nd minute. Sesko headed the ball into the background of the net, but the referee annulled the goal due to a positional offside by Henrichs.
The assistant raised the flag immediately and Bosnian referee Irfan Peljto waited for the VAR review to confirm the decision. After Schlager’s bitten shot coming off a corner, Sesko redirected the shot with his head towards the three posts. The Slovenian was in legal position thanks to Rodrygo, who was further back.
However, Henrichs, who was in an illegal position, lightly touched Lunin from behind at the same moment the ball crossed the goal line. The Red Bull Leipzig player does not intervene directly in the play, but his action interferes with the goalkeeper. It is not clear if the goalkeeper would have prevented the goal if he had not been bothered by the midfielder. The lineman and the VAR had no doubts.
Former Spanish referee Mateu Lahoz, who was commentating on the match for Movistar, harshly criticized the VAR decision. “This is what cannot be. On the field you can be confused as an athlete, but the VAR is there to help with these types of things. Disallowing the goal for that is crazy. Fortunately it is in favor of the Spanish team. But we are honest and this is crazy. This is not football,” said the Valencian.
The Leipzig players did not protest the disallowed goal, perhaps because they believed that Sesko was offside at the time of the shot, but from Lepzig’s official account on the social network X they sent an ironic message related to the controversial action. “We in in minute 2,” could be read next to a photo of the Real Madrid coach, Carlo Ancelotti, with his characteristic raised eyebrow, which could be translated as a gesture of disbelief and surprise.
The disallowed goal was only one of the several scoring chances that the German team had at the start of the match. Real Madrid, with a defense of circumstances and without Bellingham in the offensive field, had a hard time generating danger in the first half due to the defensive order and intensity of the fifth-placed team in the Bundesliga.
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