{"id":272453,"date":"2026-06-13T18:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T22:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/qatar-win-first-world-cup-point-but-is-fifas-offside-technology-working-viewers-arent-sure\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T19:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T23:00:10","slug":"qatar-win-first-world-cup-point-but-is-fifas-offside-technology-working-viewers-arent-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/qatar-win-first-world-cup-point-but-is-fifas-offside-technology-working-viewers-arent-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar win first World Cup point but is FIFA\u2019s offside technology working? Viewers aren\u2019t sure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qatar win first World Cup point but is FIFA\u2019s offside technology working? Viewers aren\u2019t sure<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7357425\/2026\/06\/13\/qatar-vs-switzerland-world-cup-2026-score-results-takeaways\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-13 18:28:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Qatar scored four minutes into second-half stoppage time to earn a 1-1 draw with Switzerland, their first ever point at a World Cup.<\/p>\n

Boualem Khoukhi headed in for the side ranked 50th in the world, denying the 19th-ranked Swiss victory as the Gulf team achieved the first notable surprise result of this tournament.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was justice of sorts for Qatar, given there was plenty of confusion surrounding the game\u2019s opening goal.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Harpur and Dermot Corrigan analyse the main talking points.<\/p>\n

How big a moment was this for Qatar?<\/h2>\n

After losing all three games while hosting the 2022 tournament, conceding seven times and scoring just once, Qatar are aiming to be more competitive this time around.<\/p>\n

In the intervening years, the tiny Gulf state won the 2023 Asian Cup, while a first ever World Cup qualification (they were allowed in automatically as hosts four years ago) was achieved under Spanish head coach Julen Lopetegui, via clutch victories over neighbours Iran and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Athletic before this tournament, Lopetegui honestly pointed out the limitations within his squad, and predicted they would have to defend a lot during all three group games.<\/p>\n

And so it transpired through the first half in Santa Clara, California, on Saturday, with Qatar\u2019s busiest player being Mahmud Abunada, their goalkeeper. Abunada, who was born in Qatari capital Doha but has Palestinian heritage, was arguably unlucky with the penalty incident (albeit he did clatter into Remo Freuler \u2014 more on that below) and made three important saves through the opening 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

\n Mahmud Abunada made a series of saves to keep Qatar in the game (Bob Kupbens\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n

Qatar had very little possession, but they did make chances. Edmilson Junior almost capitalised on a mistake by Swiss defender Manuel Akanji in the second minute, and just before half-time he was again denied by goalkeeper Gregor Kobel.<\/p>\n

The second half was a similar story, but Qatar…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qatar win first World Cup point but is FIFA\u2019s offside technology working? Viewers aren\u2019t sure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":272455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/06\/13171753\/GettyImages-2281440645-scaled.jpg?width=1200&height=630&fit=cover","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272457,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272453\/revisions\/272457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}