Argentina and Mexico have each picked up four favorable VAR decisions so far in the World Cup, the clearest sign yet that review calls are piling up on one side of the tournament. Paraguay and Croatia, by contrast, have each had three VAR decisions go against them.
The numbers are drawing fresh attention because they come just after Argentina’s 3-2 win over Egypt, when a referee disallowed an Egyptian goal after VAR review. Critics called it a bad call and a sign of bias in favor of Argentina, but the data behind the reviews points to something narrower: how often VAR has changed the outcome, not why.
That distinction matters because the overall volume is already ahead of recent tournaments. There have been 35 VAR interventions across 97 World Cup games hosted so far this year, compared with 26 in 2022 and 22 in 2018, the year VAR was introduced. In other words, review has not only stayed central to the World Cup; it has become more active, giving teams more chances to benefit from or suffer because of a call.
Brennan Klein, whose work is part of NGN Offside, said the data can show where a foul was judged to have happened, but not what was in a referee’s mind. He described the disputed play as a foul in a specific minute and at a specific X, Y coordinate on the pitch, not as proof of intent. “It might be easy to see with your eyes, ‘Oh God, that was a bad call,’” he said, but the numbers only show the foul occurred, not that an official was working for or against a team.
That is why Argentina keeps sitting at the center of the argument without the data settling it. Klein said there are ways to poke at the pattern, and asked why Argentina and Mexico are topping the list, but added that the answer he can support is procedural: referees missed fouls that VAR thought should have been fouls. There is still a hop, step and a jump between that and a claim of bias.
The next matches may widen the gap, narrow it, or leave the same teams at the top of the table. What the numbers already show is that Lionel Messi Argentina World Cup chatter is being driven less by one disputed moment than by a broader review record that keeps feeding the suspicion.
