World Cup VAR review: Was ref right to show three red cards in Mexico opener?

Red card to South Africa’s Sphephelo Sithole for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity (DOGSO).

What happened: South Africa were 1-0 down as the second half kicked off, and they were soon down to 10 players when Sithole was shown a red card for bringing down Mexico midfielder Brian Gutiérrez, who was through on goal. The VAR checked the decision and judged it to be correct.

Verdict: Sithole will go down in history as the first player to be shown a red card at this World Cup, and this was a relatively easy decision.

Mexico’s Gutiérrez cut across the South Africa defender and was tripped in the process, causing him to go down. Gutiérrez had a clear opportunity to score with his next action, so the resulting red card was the correct decision.

For this to completely meet the threshold of DOGSO, the referee has be sure that the attacker’s next touch is going to be a shot on goal or his direction of play is directly in on goal. In my opinion, this situation did not completely meet the criteria required for a red card. The attacker’s next action was more likely to be a cross to his teammate as opposed to a shot on goal, making this a possible goal-scoring opportunity and not an obvious one.

But I would not expect the VAR to interfere with this decision as it would not be judged as a “clear and obvious” error given the level of subjectivity around the attacker’s next action, whether it be a shot or cross.