VAR Review: Why Uruguay's goal vs. United States was onside - ESPN

On Monday, the United States was eliminated from the Copa América in the group stage after losing a must-win game 1-0 to Uruguay.

The goal was a hugely controversial moment, with fans and pundits adamant that the scorer, Mathías Olivera, was clearly in front of the last defender when the ball was last touched by a teammate.

So, why was the goal allowed to stand by the VAR?

What happened: The only goal of the game came in the 66th minute when U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner failed to hold a header from Ronald Araújo, and Olivera pounced to score on the rebound. The U.S. appealed for offside against Olivera, and a lengthy VAR check followed.

VAR decision: Goal stands.

VAR review: At the Copa América. there's no semiautomated offside technology (SAOT). The video assistants have the legacy version, which uses crosshairs and requires the manual application of the lines to the two players, or to the attacker and the ball.

From one camera angle Olivera looked to be clearly offside, while the other used by the VAR looked closer but still offside.

One of the biggest misconceptions of the crosshair technology, which is also still being used in most domestic leagues, is that the VAR has used the «wrong angle.» Yet the whole reason for using it is to fix the parallax error — which causes displacement in the position of objects (in this case players) due to the viewing angle. The technology is mapped to each pitch, taking into account any camber, to ensure it is as accurate as possible.

Being unable to clearly show why an onside or offside decision has been reached has been a major issue with crosshair technology. We're left to look at the camera provided by the television coverage, which can often be misleading — and when the lines are