Goalkeeper wipes out striker, referee awards free-kick to the offending side: Mark Otten left baffled by 0-0 draw in Dutch second division

Some matches are memorable because of goals, others because of mistakes. The 0-0 draw between Jong FC Utrecht and FC Eindhoven in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie belongs to the second group. No one scored, but the only thing people talked about after the final whistle was a refereeing decision that made both sides shake their heads. The controversial incident happened when Emmanuel Owen, the striker of Jong FC Utrecht, broke through towards goal and faced goalkeeper Jort Borgmans of FC Eindhoven. Borgmans rushed out of his goal, failed to reach the ball and collided with Owen. The home striker went down. It looked like an obvious penalty. What happened next was a shock. Referee Joshua Kuipers did not point to the spot. Instead, he awarded a free-kick to FC Eindhoven and ruled that Owen had deliberately looked for contact with the goalkeeper. Mark Otten, the head coach of Jong FC Utrecht, stood on the touchline and could not believe his eyes. Speaking to ESPN, he said: “I see a foul being committed and the referee makes a miraculous decision.” Otten later explained that the referee believed Owen had gone looking for the goalkeeper. At that point, the coach could no longer suppress his laughter. It was the kind of laugh that comes from helplessness, when you realise your understanding of football and the referee’s understanding are on different planets. Remarkably, Otten did not want to turn the incident into a personal attack on the official. He insisted he did not believe Joshua Kuipers intentionally made the wrong call. Otten understands that a referee only gets one quick look, while his coaching staff can watch slow-motion replays. His only consolation was that his team had the “luxury” of reviewing footage after the match, a privilege the referee did not have. “Let me start by saying the referee doesn’t judge wrongly on purpose. It is of course a very wrong assessment. That disadvantages us, but I do not blame him for it,” Otten said. Jort Borgmans, the man at the centre of the incident, did not try to deny anything either. Facing the camera after the game, he explained that he thought he could reach the ball before the striker, but the ball bounced higher than expected. That caused him to slip slightly as he pushed off, and he ended up colliding with Owen without touching the ball. “I saw that I could get to the ball earlier than the striker. The ball bounced slightly higher than I anticipated. I think that is why I slipped a little as I pushed off. Then I go under the ball and come into contact with the striker,” Borgmans said. Borgmans admitted he was shocked because he missed the ball completely. He hoped Owen might have been offside, but he needed to watch the replay to know for sure. In other words, even the goalkeeper who benefited from the decision was not entirely sure he deserved that protection. The match ended 0-0. But looking only at the scoreline means missing the whole story behind it. This was not merely about a wrong decision. It was about how a young reserve team like Jong FC Utrecht has to accept injustice in a professional league without VAR. Put yourself in Mark Otten’s shoes. He does not manage a huge club. Jong FC Utrecht is a development side built around young players eager to prove themselves in front of scouts. A wrong decision may not change the title race, but it can take away priceless playing time and opportunities from players at the start of their careers. We often talk about VAR as a tool to protect justice, but in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, the second tier of Dutch football, justice still depends on one man’s eyes. And human eyes can be deceived. This is the biggest blind spot in football: people judge the consequence before examining the cause. Owen fell, so the referee assumed Owen wanted to fall. Borgmans did not make a brutal challenge, so the referee assumed Borgmans had done nothing wrong. The funny thing is that Borgmans, the player who benefited, honestly said he had not touched the ball. He could have defended the referee and claimed he touched the ball first. Instead, he told the truth. That makes him worthy of respect. The story in Utrecht is another reminder about the absence of VAR in lower leagues. If this match had VAR, the referee would have had the chance to review the incident and perhaps change his mind. Without VAR, the mistake became impossible to erase. We chase stories all day, but in the end, the story chases us. When I heard Borgmans’ version, I realised the story was not only about a wrong decision. It was about a goalkeeper admitting his mistake and a coach trying to stay calm while watching his team being treated unfairly. Mark Otten’s laughter after the match perhaps said it all. It was not the laughter of a loser. It was the laughter of an experienced man who has seen too many absurdities in football to get angry at every single mistake. But that laugh made people feel more sorry for him than any complaint would.