Why offside rules denied goals for Portugal, Croatia in World Cup

Why offside rules denied goals for Portugal, Croatia in World Cup originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The margins are so fine at the World Cup.

Portugal and Croatia each had goals called off because of offside rules on Thursday night in Toronto in the Round of 32.

The game could've had a lot more goals, as it turns out -- including a potential tying goal right at the death that was called off for Croatia.

It was scoreless in the first half, but the ball kept finding the back of the net in the second half.

Some of the goals simply didn't count.

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Why were Portugal and Croatia offside?

These were all the relatively simple offside variety: When the ball is played, an attacker cannot be past the last defender.

That's what Cristiano Ronaldo did, by the narrowest of margins:

Then for Croatia, Peter Sucic was ruled offside in similar fashion:

And then the big one: Croatia lost a game-tying goal in the 12th minute of second-half stoppage time for the faintest of touches when a player was offside:

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