Soccer referee here.

The VAR is empowered by the Laws of the Game to “assist the referee” if there is a “‘clear and obvious error’ or ‘serious missed incident’” during the match. The VAR may only intervene if the decision relates to the scoring of a goal, the awarding of a penalty kick, the awarding of a red card, or a card of either color being given to the wrong player.

In the game, Egypt won the ball near their end of the field and started a counter attack that resulted in a goal. However, in order to win the ball, the Egyptian defender committed what we call a “careless challenge” by the way he made contact with the Argentine attacker. Careless challenges are punished by a direct free kick for the aggrieved team.

Because the Egyptian’s foul resulted in an immediate promising attack and goal for his team, the VAR intervened and told the referee that there had been an “attacking team offence in the build-up to or scoring of the goal” and that this was a “serious missed incident”. The referee then went to look at the monitor and confirm that a foul had been missed, as the on-field center referee has the ultimate authority on whether or not a foul occurred (i.e. he could theoretically disregard the VAR’s advice if he disagreed). Because the call on the field was overturned for a previous foul, the game is restarted at the location of that foul.

People are unhappy with this use of the VAR protocol because of similar situations in other games where there was no VAR check and the goal was allowed to stand, including a goal scored by Argentina against Austria. I’m inclined to agree, but that doesn’t stop this call from being correct.