{"id":910203,"date":"2026-07-03T16:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910203\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T16:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:57:14","slug":"world-cup-live-updates-latest-bracket-lionel-messi-argentina-headline-fridays-final-round-of-32-slate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910203\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup live updates, latest bracket: Lionel Messi, Argentina headline Friday’s final Round of 32 slate"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a moment, Croatia<\/a> seemed to do the impossible. In the Round of 32, Jo\u0161ko Gvardiol scored a stoppage-time equalizer to keep their game against Portugal<\/a> alive.<\/p>\n

But the goal was called back after VAR review, sealing Portugal’s 2-1 victory<\/a> and ending Croatia’s World Cup run in heartbreaking fashion. Notable, though, was the reason why VAR was able to overturn the goal: a microchip, embedded in the game ball, that confirmed the offside call.<\/p>\n

Before the goal, Ivan Peri\u0161i\u0107 had sent a long ball into the box, where it was received by Mario Pa\u0161ali\u0107; the ball then bounced, before Gvardiol slid to send the ball into the net. And while it seemed that Igor Matanovi\u0107<\/a>, who was in the box, may have made contact with the ball before it ended up with Pa\u0161ali\u0107, it was difficult to determine from video review alone.<\/p>\n

That’s where the chip came in: The sensor was able to determine Matanovi\u0107 did indeed touch the ball with his flicking header before it landed with Pa\u0161ali\u0107. That distinction led to the offside call, because while Pa\u0161ali\u0107 was onside when Peri\u0161i\u0107 made his pass, the midfielder was offside as Matanovi\u0107 got his head on the ball.<\/p>\n

Read more about the microchip embedded in the official World Cup match balls.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a moment, Croatia seemed to do the impossible. In the Round of 32, Jo\u0161ko Gvardiol scored a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":910204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[2841,4740,368148,179321,12575,9249,30987,362065,5506,2374,62,16997,67,132,68,21490,368147],"class_list":["post-910203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-argentina","tag-australia","tag-blue-sharks","tag-cape-verde","tag-colombia","tag-egypt","tag-ghana","tag-knockout-stage","tag-lionel-messi","tag-mohamed-salah","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-knockout-stage"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116857107203024356","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}