The biggest turning point appears to have been the dismissal of Jarell Quansah after a pitchside review. Faghani’s explanation was blunt: “I saw the challenge but I didn't have a clear view of the point of contact,” before adding, “But now it was clear.”
That is the strongest case for VAR in modern football. A referee can read the speed, the intent and the flow in real time, but not always the contact. If Quansah did catch Jesús Gallardo high, then the review process did exactly what it was designed to do: correct an incomplete first look.
Where the argument sharpens is Mexico’s penalty. Thomas Tuchel did not sound convinced by the intervention, saying: “They overturned a situation where [the referee] doesn't even give a foul.”
That cuts to the heart of the wider complaint around VAR in elite football. Supporters accept obvious errors being fixed. What they struggle with is the shifting line over what counts as “clear and obvious”. England’s own penalty, awarded after Anthony Gordon was brought down, appears to have needed no such second layer of interpretation.
Even the opening seconds carried controversy, with Declan Rice reportedly booked almost immediately. Faghani’s reasoning was revealing: “It was a clear yellow card for me,” and “It also helped everyone understand the line from the beginning.”
That is a referee’s tightrope - control the temperature without becoming the story. On this occasion, the officiating inevitably became part of the drama.
England now move on, and the next storyline will be whether their momentum can survive another knockout test - and whether the conversation afterwards is about football first, rather than the screen on the touchline.