What was your favorite video review controversy at this past summer's World Cup? Was it when Egypt had the best goal in their history disallowed for a foul committed by an unrelated guy 15 seconds before the big moment, when Iran lost to that same Egypt side over a totally fake offsides call, when the mouth-covering red card rule was applied against a Paraguayan player but not against an England player, or when Donald Trump personally lobbied FIFA to get a red card against Folarin Balogun rescinded? It's hard to choose from such a bounty of options.
The 2026 World Cup represented a nadir in the evolution of soccer as theatrical product, with interminable replay reviews bringing the action to a halt in the name of adjudicating decisions that a referee couldn't possibly make. The world has been told that the death of theater is the price of fairness.
I hate this stuff, especially because VAR is wrong all the time. The counterargument would be that without VAR, referees would miss even more stuff and that the world would see big, consequential calls get blown without the ability to review them. On this week's episode of Only If You Get Caught, we examine the most famous missed call in the history of soccer as a way of making the argument against VAR. Our show is often accused of being pro-cheating, which is usually mistaking curiosity for endorsement. But in this case the charges are correct: We absolutely love the Hand of God.
We were lucky enough to be joined by Marcela Mora y Araujo, Argentinian journalist and the English translator of Diego Maradona's autobiography. Together we walked through the story of the Hand of God and used it to frame a broader discussion of how the game has changed and gotten worse thanks to the advent of new technologies. I find the most extreme example of soccer cheating to be a useful way to make this argument, since anyone who is anti-VAR has to grapple with the fact that players continue to try to cheat all the time. What the Hand of God shows us is that cheating can itself be cool and good, when done against the right villain at the right moment, and when framed by the best goal of all time.
As you can see above, OIYGC is on YouTube this season! You can subscribe to all of Defector's shows on our YouTube channel. The audio version of the show can still be found wherever you listen to podcasts. The transcript for this week's episode can be found here.
