Auxerre 1-1 Le Mans: the goal nobody saw, two watches out of four, and Cissé’s anger

Lucas Buadés met his head on it, Danny Namaso deflects and Paul Nardi saves on the line: in the 48th minute at the Abbé-Deschamps on Sunday, referee Willy Delajod looked at his watch and awarded the goal to Le Mans. Nobody in the ground saw the ball go in. Cameron Archer levelled (1-1), but the evening belongs to a goal that only faulty watches could validate.

A goal only the watches saw

No camera angle shows the ball fully behind the line; only the goal-line technology’s 3D image claims it. Will Still went through it frame by frame on L1+: what it shows is Nardi’s glove, not the ball. Delajod checked the VAR and stood by his call. Nardi did not hold back: “I have the feeling, at 300 per cent, that it was not a goal”, before adding, almost smiling: “maybe the robots are better than humans”.

After the final whistle the officials told Still that only two of the four connected watches had buzzed, and spoke of an unprecedented “IT problem”. The tool brought in to end debates delivered its verdict in the middle of its own breakdown. Archer equalised in the 56th minute and it finished 1-1.

“Once again against us”: Cissé is furious

Djibril Cissé, Auxerre’s attacking coach and a member of the club’s board, let his anger out on social media: “At what point did the ball go in? You have to stop the nonsense, guys. Once again against us. It is really starting to add up.” The arithmetic matches his mood: without that goal, Auxerre would be two points better off and sitting in the top 10. They lie 12th on 10 points, Le Mans 15th on 7, and the run ends here with a fourth win in five league games there for the taking.

Videira’s son stayed on the bench

The match’s other story was written before kick-off: Patrick Videira, Le Mans’s head coach, called up his son Lenny for the first time. A 20-year-old midfielder who can play holding or box-to-box, with spells at Ajaccio and Bastia and roughly forty training sessions with the pros back in Ligue 2, Lenny sat on the bench and never came on: no minutes in Ligue 1 this season.

Auxerre travel to Strasbourg on 1 November with an open question: goal-line technology, brought in to remove doubt, has just created plenty. For the bettor, one ticket can turn on a breakdown: on Sunday morning Auxerre were 2.16 favourites with 1xbet and the draw was 3.70; an invisible goal decided both were worth the same. 18+. Only bet what you can afford to lose.