Rashford

We take a look at the big VAR from Man United vs. Liverpool, with Marcus Rashford's winning goal ruled onside.

One such example was [Jordan Henderson](https://www.espn.com/soccer/player/_/id/127262/Jordan-Henderson)'s injury-time winner for [Liverpool](/soccer/team?id=364) at [Everton](/soccer/team?id=368) two years ago, with [Sadio Mane](https://www.espn.com/soccer/player/_/id/169797/Sadio-Mané) called offside in the build-up. The VAR will only have to validate that it's a correct offside situation (ball is played by an attacking player, or by a player in an active offside position). Semi-Automated Offside Technology will remove the whole process of the VAR deciding the moment the ball has been played, plotting players and drawing the lines. What's an even better improvement is a 3D visualisation of an offside situation, like goal-line technology or line calls in tennis, which takes the fan directly inline with the players as though they are the assistant referee. Then we could see it adopted for the 2023-24 season as we will no longer have to use this manual offside system which supporters dislike so much. Which is why semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) arrives this year, first in the Champions League and then in the World Cup. There was a question of Rashford being ahead of the last defender, [Joe Gomez](https://www.espn.com/soccer/player/_/id/102053/Joe-Gomez), when the ball was played. Even with the 5cm tolerance level, there will still be offside situations that fall right on the border. There are still problems with the visualisation of the offside calls, due to how the human eye perceives a 3D situation on a 2D image. The line isn't displayed to both players (in any league) because they would sit on top of each other. VAR review: It was the weekend of close offside calls, including two goals that were disallowed by the narrowest of margins. If the two lines touch, it's too close to call and the attacker should be given onside.