Explained: Why Croatia's late equaliser against Portugal did not stand

Croatia thought they had dragged their Round of 32 match against Portugal into extra time after a late equaliser, only to see the goal getting chalked off by VAR as offside using the snickometer technology, a name very familiar to cricket fans.

The incident happened in the 13th minute of injury time, when Portugal were ahead by 2-1.

Perisic whipped in a cross that found Mario Pasalic, who deflected the ball towards Josko Gvardiol, who poked the ball home.

However, a VAR check using the Connected Ball Technology – a ball-tracking technology similar to cricket’s snickometer – determined that before reaching Pasalic, the ball took a slight deflection off Igor Matanovic, and at the time, Pasalic was offside.

Before reaching Pasalic, the ball also deflected off the head of Portugal defender Renato Veiga. But after reviewing the action on the pitch-side monitor, referee Espen Eskas determined that the touch from the defender was not intentional.

He confirmed the offside call and cancelled out the goal, as the Croatian players looked on in disbelief.

The thousands of Croats, who had just celebrated a remarkable goal, were now irate and started throwing water bottles onto the pitch.

Their show of anger did not alter the result, as the match ended 2-1 in Portugal’s favour, and Croatia, after finishing in the top four in the last two World Cups, were eliminated in the Round of 32.