According to The Guardian’s Andy Brassell via Twitter, the two teams had already headed for the tunnel for their respective half-time team talks when all of a sudden the technology signaled a handball by Freiburg’s Marc-Oliver Kempf which happened right before the of the proceeding.
Both sets of players were then ordered to come back onto the field by Referee Guido Winkmann for play to continue. After a momentary delay due to protests, Mainz 05’s Pablo De Blasis stepped up and made no error of the spot-kick to give his side an unexpected lead in the seventh minute of stoppage time.
Now this is special, even for VAR. Half-time whistle goes in Mainz v Freiburg, players go off, then pen to Mainz given for handball on last action of half. Players called back out, De Blasis scores, players go off again.
— Andy Brassell (@andybrassell) April 16, 2018
The away fans subsequently responded to what they deemed as injustice to their team by throwing items onto the pitch. It hasn’t been long after the recurrent inconsistency of the VAR forced stakeholders in the English Premier League to vote against it full inclusion in the league next season.
As a result, with the latest bizarre scenario in the Bundesliga also making waves, it will be interesting to see how the technology will cope during this year’s World Cup in Russia.
