Sông Lam Nghệ An (right) fought hard and deserved more than a loss, had it not been for confusing referee decisions. Photo courtesy of the VPF.

Anh Đức

A corner, curled into the penalty area, was met by a towering header. The ball then reached another attacker, who easily tapped it in the empty net.

All opposition defenders were startled and looked down. The travelling fans in the stadium jumped in unison. However, the linesman's flag stayed up.

The cheers on the away stand soon turned into jeers of confusion. Fans even chanted 'V-A-R' out loud. The giant LED screen signalled that the goal was being checked, but after five minutes, the decision stood.

At home, those who watched the replays saw that there was nothing wrong with the goal - there was no foul leading into it, and the last defender was on the line, which means that the scorer was not offside.

That was the story of the controversial game between Thể Công and Sông Lam Nghệ An (SLNA) last Friday, which saw enormous backlash from the travelling Nghệ An fans for the referee's blatant decisions.

I was in the stands for Nghệ An's last three games at Hà Nội, and I can say that the players and their rowdy fans deserved better, Nghệ An was the better team in Hàng Đẫy on Friday.

Nghệ An put the ball into Thể Công's net twice and had a shot ambiguously cleared on the line before losing late with a penalty (which VAR was also involved in).

As the final whistle blew, the yellow wall of SLNA's fans just shook their heads in disbelief and disappointment at a late penalty loss, while the ones watching at home, with the privilege of seeing the replays, took to social media and lambasted the decision.

In the broadcast of the match, the commentators said that the linesman had signalled that the corner kick curved outside the field's boundary - therefore, the goal does not count.

However, the camera angles of this match did not show the corner straight on the line. The replays, which had only a slightly diagonal angle, were not entirely conclusive, as they still showed the ball curled inside the boundaries of the field.

Nghệ An, a former V.League 1 winner and one of the land's top teams, now rebuilding with a young squad, is battling relegation and that one goal might have made a difference.

The away team even had more things to be baffled at the referee: earlier in the 14th minute, they alleged that Nhâm Mạnh Dũng of Thể Công Viettel handled the ball within the penalty area, yet neither the main referee nor the VAR team initiated a review.

The fans were perhaps, at first, happy at the fact that VAR is being used in the V.League. But the joy soon turned into ennui and disappointment as they saw that, even with an assisting technology, Vietnamese referees were still able to create controversial decisions.

And the fact that the V.League's VAR system lacked crucial camera angles to determine the situation is even more hilarious. If you have a system that you cannot rely upon to help you decide a crucial yes/no question, then that system cannot be trusted.

Had VAR not been applied to this game, as was the case in the past seasons where not all games had the system available, Nghệ An could even have been the winner.

The new technology has brought great transformation to the game globally, but locally in Việt Nam, it seemed that it brought nothing more than a placebo effect. VNS