The referees are sorry; they really are. According to the Premier League's official statement, the reason VAR overlooked an extremely offside Enzo Fernández on the goal that decided last month's Manchester derby was that officials were simply too busy watching Erling Haaland.
And honestly: who could blame them? The man is captivating in slow mo.
As Josko Gvardiol scooted up the opposite side of the box, Haaland adjusted each stride to stay perfectly level with the ball: a half-step with his left foot, then a lunge with his right, always landing precisely where he needed to be. When Gvardiol curled the cross around Patrick Dorgu some 30 yards away, Haaland was, as best modern technology can measure, three centimeters behind the line of Dorgu's big toe.
Attackers with a special knack for staying onside often don't get as much love as they deserve. The most famous was probably AC Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi, whose high-wire style of play inspired Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson to joke that the "lad must have been born offside."
Inzaghi took that personally. "Thankfully I was born a meter onside," he shot back, "otherwise I wouldn't have scored most of my goals."
Is it possible to measure who's really good or bad at staying onside -- and how much that skill is worth?