New England Revolution Stunned by Disallowed Goal
“Yeah. Not allowing that goal was completely ridiculous. I mean, VAR is supposed to correct mistakes, not create them. That’s completely absurd, the explanation for that.”
The New England Revolution walked away with a single point but that could have changed if a 61st-minute own goal wasn’t overturned.
Shortly after Dylan Borrero entered the game, he sent a ball into the box and Mitja Ilenic appeared to have headed it into his own net to give the Revs a lead. That all changed when the goal was disallowed due to Gustavo Bou being offside.
While Bou was offside, he didn’t leave his feet or appear to make an effort to touch the ball but it appeared that the referee believed that the striker impacted the goalkeeper’s ability to make a save.
But after the draw, Revolution head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena couldn’t believe the call.
“Yeah. Not allowing that goal was completely ridiculous. I mean, VAR is supposed to correct mistakes, not create them,” he said. “That’s completely absurd, the explanation for that.”
Arena then revealed the explanation that he received from the referee.
“I think they said Gustavo [Bou] was in the line of the [NYCFC] goalkeeper [Luis Barraza] and the guy wasn’t playing the ball, intentionally. Completely absurd. It’s ridiculous. We’re wasting our time even discussing it. They’ll come back and they’ll give an explanation why their call was correct and it’s completely wrong in the eyes of anybody that is involved in the sport.”
Arena wasn’t the only member of the Revs to be confused by the call. Dave Romney didn’t understand the decision but also didn’t want to use it as an excuse.
“We got unfortunate with the offside call [in the 63rd minute],” he said. “I don’t really know the explanation behind it, but we still went up 1-0 so there’s no real excuses there.”
With Bobby Wood being a striker it isn’t that surprising that he stood behind his fellow striker in Bou after the game. While he said that he had to look it over, his immediate response on the field is that the goal should have counted.
“Yeah, I need to look at it again,” Wood said. “When I saw it, I thought it was kind of ridiculous that it wasn’t a goal. I haven’t seen it since but when I was on the field I thought it was [a goal]. It should have been a goal for sure.“
With the dropped points, New England also dropped to third place in the Eastern Conference early on in the season. While there are plenty of games left to play, dropping points at home is always disappointing.
The disallowed goal seemed to be an inflection point in the match. While the Revolution were able to secure a goal later in the match, it gave NYCFC some confidence and new life.
Now all New England can do is move on to the next match and hope to get back to their winning ways. The Revolution return home to face CF Montreal on Saturday in what will serve as a quality opportunity to walk away with three points with Montreal currently occupying last place in the conference.