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Alexander Isak went into Tuesday night’s match in outstanding form, the striker having scored in all of his last five games for club and country.
Indeed, in his 14 appearances for Newcastle United and Sweden, Alexander Isak had registered an excellent 12 direct goal involvements, scoring nine goals and getting three assists.
With Sweden having finished top of the Nations League group and Azerbaijan rock bottom, fair to say that the Newcastle United striker was confident of making it six scoring matches in a row.
Kulusevski opened the scoring for Sweden after only 10 minutes, then Gyokeres added two more in the 26th and 37th minutes.
Then it was Alexander Isak’s turn.
The ball was played through to him wide right just over the halfway line, the Sweden striker producing a brilliant run and finish to make it 4-0 and now six scoring games in a row for club and country.
However… VAR then getting involved, drawing their lines, disallowing the goal due to offside.
Alexander Isak not at all happy!
Alexander Isak speaking after the match about the incident:
“You burn a little.
“I won’t lie.
“You draw a line, completely wrong, that’s too bad.
“I can accept assessment situations, that people can have different opinions and that wrong decisions can happen.
“But this is not it.
“You have drawn the line when the pass is wrong.”
Sportbladet have today (20 November 2024) contacted UEFA and asked about the Alexander Isak ‘offside’ goal and got this response:
“The offside decision was a mistake by the video assistant referee.”
As Alexander Isak stated and now UEFA themselves have made public, the VAR at the Strawberry Arena got to all wrong with their lines across the pitch. The Sweden striker was well onside as the match replays clearly showed AND would have shown if the VAR had got their lines across the pitch correct.
Having experienced that ridiculously wrong offside decision at 3-0, it was then quickly followed by the Newcastle striker seeing a penalty saved.
Sometimes it just isn’t your night.
The game eventually ended 6-0 and Alexander Isak not a single goal, Gyokeres scored four of the six goals, with Tottenham’s Kulusevski grabbing the other two.