Referees robbed Canada of penalty kick against Belgium

Canada was unable to score on a penalty kick early on in their match against Belgium on Wednesday, but they should have had another opportunity just minutes later. It would appear the referees robbed them of the chance with a crucial mistake.

Canada was awarded a penalty kick in the 10th minute after a Belgium player deflected a shot with his arm. Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois saved the shot from Alphonso Davies to keep the match scoreless.

Then in the 13th minute, Canada’s Tajon Buchanan was wrongly whistled for offsides on a play where Belgium attacker Eden Hazard was trying to pass the ball back to a teammate. Even though Buchanan was in an offsides position, he should not have been called offsides since the ball came to him from an opposing player. To make matters worse, Buchanan was fouled inside the box and should have been awarded a penalty kick.

Canada robbed of another penalty by the referee. Linesman gave offside when Hazard passed the ball.#FIFAWorldCup #Qatar2022 #BELCAN pic.twitter.com/ht5ZSvzgiy

— Manish (@tobimanish) November 23, 2022

Belgium took a 1-0 lead into halftime. After the half, FOX rules analyst Mark Clattenburg explained that Buchanan was “clearly fouled” and play should not have been stopped for offsides. He said the officials in the video replay room should have caught the mistake.

“The only question would be has the referee blown his whistle? We checked that, and clearly the referee blew the whistle for offside after the foul,” Clattenburg said. “So, therefore (they should have given) the chance for the VR to check if this should have been a penalty kick.

“What I can’t understand is there are five officials in the VR room. I can only assume they used the offsides lines, the new semi-automated technology, and then what’s happened is they must have validated it — which is still a human error — that the technology accepted that (the pass) came from his teammate and not a defender. Therefore, I can only assume it was a human error by the VR and that Canada should have had a second penalty kick.”

This is only the second time Canada has qualified for the World Cup, with their other appearance coming in 1986. They entered Wednesday as a heavy underdog but outplayed Belgium for much of the match. Belgium won 1-0.