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The referee initially awarded Belgium a penalty for handball against New Zealand, but VAR recommended a review and the referee overturned it on the monitor, ruling the defender's arm was in a natural position. The final decision is correct. Under Law 12, a defender's accidental handball is a penalty only if the arm made the body "unnaturally bigger" or the act was deliberate. The defender was lunging to block with his arm out as a natural part of that motion — not extended beyond what the action required — and the shot was struck from close range, leaving minimal reaction time, which Law 12 treats as mitigation. So there was no punishable handball, and the original award was a clear-and-obvious error — the standard required for VAR to rescind a penalty already given. The referee confirming the overturn on his own monitor review is a strong endorsement of the no-handball conclusion. CORRECT DECISION, MEDIUM confidence — handball remains the most subjective area and VAR overturning a subjective call is only proper when the original is clearly wrong, which the close-range/natural-arm factors here support.
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