The reason VAR couldn't rescue Celtic with Daizen Maeda foul check after gut wrenching Bayern blow

It's not just Celtic fans who felt they should have had a free-kick before Bayern's Munich's gut wrenching equaliser on Tuesday night.

Boss Brendan Rodgers thought Dayot Upamecano catching the Japanese forward in the face with his hand warranted intervention from the French referee, although admitted that maybe Maeda could have stayed down a bit longer to try and get the whistler's attention - in other words showing a level of cuteness sometimes needed at the highest level.

Despite Upamecano going over to check on Maeda, play raged on and eventually Celtic were hit with a sucker punch. After Kasper Schmeichel produced a top reaction stop to keep out Leon Goretzka's header, Alphonso Davies was too quick for Cameron Carter-Vickers' whose attempted clearance was bundled into the net from close range by the Canadian to make it 1-1 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate, sending Bayern through and Celtic crashing out.

Fans have been asking why VAR didn't go back to check the Maeda foul to see if the goal had been disallowed. But IFAB laws clear that one up, as the incident didn't fall within the attacking phase of play for the goal. These are determined by VAR officials, and while Bayern did launch an attack immediately after the incident, which occurred with 92:29 on the clock, it didn't directly lead to Davies' goal.

That came after the attacking phase of play had already been reset. The ball went in just over a minute and a half after the incident and given a new phase of play had since started, VAR could not go back to a previous one to check for potential reasons to chalk it off.

IFAB laws state: "For decisions/incidents relating to goals, penalty/no penalty and red cards for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity