Sporting CP vs Lask Linz VAR controversy: Pedro Henriques says two goals should not have stood

Pedro Henriques says VAR should have intervened on two Sporting goals in the Sporting CP vs Lask Linz match. The former referee told A Bola that the penalty for Nestory Irankunda was "very forced" and that there was an attacking foul by Flávio Gonçalves before Sporting’s second goal.

The two flashpoints Henriques flagged

The first came at 3', when Irankunda won a penalty after contact with Ljubicic. Henriques’s view was that the challenge was too strong to support the decision, and he singled it out as one of the two moments that should have gone against Sporting CP.

The second came late on, at 89', when Flávio Gonçalves pushed Alessandro Schöpf’s left arm and shoulder in the build-up to Sporting’s second goal. Henriques’s line was direct: "VAR assistance was missing to help the referee and disallow the lions' second goal." He was also pointing to the goal that made the result 2-3, with Lask Linz taking the win away from home.

The match was already full of stoppages

The referee’s report listed 32 fouls and 7 yellow cards, which fits the way the game kept breaking up. At 33', Christoph Lang tripped Catamo from behind and was booked for a tactical foul. At 38', VAR overturned a corner kick to a goal kick after judging the last touch had come off Maxi Araújo.

There were other disciplinary calls in the second half too. At 62', Robert Ljubicic was judged not to have fouled Altimira in the move that led to Lask’s goal, and at 72' Sasa Kalajdzic was correctly shown a yellow card for a very hard challenge on Ivan Fresneda.

Henriques did not claim to be reading the entire match through those two moments alone. He was making a narrower point, that the penalty and the late build-up both deserved VAR attention and neither received the intervention he expected. The final score remained 2-3, and those two incidents are now the ones the officiating discussion will circle around.