Jonathan Tah thought he had scored Germany’s winner in extra time, only for VAR to rule it out moments later. Minutes after seeing his goal chalked off, the defender missed a penalty in the shootout as Germany crashed out of the World Cup with a 4-3 loss to Paraguay after a 1-1 draw. The controversial decision quickly became the biggest talking point of the match, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alexi Lalas, and several other former players arguing the disallowed goal played a decisive role in Germany’s exit.

“I’m sorry for Tah. He scored a winning goal, and they took it away from him, and then you miss a penalty,” Ibrahimovic sympathized with Tah as the defender missed the crucial penalty in the shootout that sealed Germany’s elimination. “From a hero, he might get criticised by the media, so you become a zero,” he concluded.

Alexi Lalas was equally unimpressed by how heavily goalkeepers are protected in the modern game. “Weak. Goalkeepers are Fabergé eggs,” he wrote on X.

The controversy came after a tense contest in which Paraguay took a surprise lead against the run of play through Julio Enciso in the 42nd minute. Germany struggled to break down Paraguay’s disciplined defense before Kai Havertz headed home a Florian Wirtz cross early in the second half to level the score. Neither side found a winner in regulation, sending the match into extra time, where Tah’s disallowed goal became the defining moment of the night.

The incident itself occurred in the last minute of the first period of extra time. Tah headed a corner into the net as the on-field referees initially awarded the goal before reversing their decision following a VAR review. Waldemar Anton was deemed to have blocked Orlando Gill and impeded him from getting to the cross before Tah reached it. Many former players and pundits felt it was an extremely soft call, arguing that Anton made minimal contact while Gill went to ground too easily.

German head coach Julian Nagelsmann was in disbelief as the goal was chalked off, and when the game went to penalties, Tah missed a crucial spot kick before Jose Canale buried his effort to eliminate Germany in what was the biggest shock of the tournament so far.

The cancelled goal affected Tah’s ability to take the penalty, according to former German captain and World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger. “When he walked up to take that penalty, I don’t think he was completely free mentally. I genuinely believe that the first goal being ruled out affected him,” he told Sports on X.

Schweinsteiger’s view echoed the broader sentiment among several former players, who believed the overturned goal shifted the momentum of the match and left Germany psychologically on the back foot heading into the shootout.

Goalkeepers are usually the most protected players in soccer. A commentator was heard saying FIFA explicitly advised the referees to award free kicks if they were impeded in any way during the play. This is where the discrepancy arises, as outfield players believe goalkeepers go down on minimal contact, looking for a foul instead of playing on.

As pundits dissected the result and fumed over the cancelled goal, German skipper Joshua Kimmich did not shy away from blasting his team.

“We deserved to be eliminated,” Kimmich’s unfiltered reaction to a poor performance

After winning the 2014 World Cup, Germany has failed to impress at the Euros and World Cups that followed. A semifinal run at the 2016 Euros remains their best finish across their last six major tournaments. Having been eliminated in the group stages of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, they reached the round of 32 this time and had what appeared to be a favorable fixture.

But a disappointing result and the performance especially frustrated Kimmich. “It feels terrible. We didn’t play well against any of our opponents. We struggled badly in all three matches against teams that aren’t world-class. That’s a fact. We deserved to be eliminated,” he told as per Patrick Berger.

But World Cup winner and French icon Thierry Henry argued that they shouldn’t have lost the game at all. “Tah wins the header cleanly. He attacks the ball, gets there first, and puts it in the net. For me, that’s a perfectly good goal,” he said on Fox Sports.

“Then VAR gets involved, and suddenly we’re chalking it off because of the softest contact on the goalkeeper. That’s not football,” he concluded.

Former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp also questioned the decision, arguing that if goals like Tah’s were consistently ruled out, Arsenal’s effectiveness from set pieces would be greatly diminished because of how often they score through similar routines.

World Cup is no stranger to controversial goals, as Frank Lampard’s ghost goal during England’s 4-1 defeat to Germany during the 2010 World Cup led to the implementation of goal line technology. With the current World Cup full of similar refereeing controversies, FIFA will be bearing the brunt of analyst and pundit frustration for the remainder of the tournament.