FIFA match officials have once again demonstrated their mastery of the term 'mistaken identity' - this time during Saturday's World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and Switzerland, leaving Swiss forward Breel Embolo in tears and his team a man down for 67 minutes against the defending champions.
"It's completely not understandable," Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin said afterward, presumably while searching for a thesaurus. "I know that they will protect their referee but this rule destroyed the game today."
The VAR review and red card capped an extraordinary period that turned a previously lifeless game on its head. Switzerland had just equalized through Dan Ndoye in the 67th minute and were growing into the game, only to be reduced to ten men five minutes later thanks to the magic of technology.
The key moment: Argentina midfielder Leandro Paredes dove in to challenge Embolo as the forward darted upfield, seemingly catching his leg. Portuguese referee João Pinheiro initially issued Paredes a yellow card. But then VAR Guillermo Pacheco Larios recommended a review for mistaken identity, and somehow the offense was flipped from a Paredes foul to Embolo simulation - both yellow-card offenses. Embolo, already booked in the first half for a foul on Paredes, was ejected.
"First of all, there was definitely no reason to award that yellow card," Yakin said. "I don't understand it, it was a harmless situation."
Switzerland midfielder Remo Freuler was equally bewildered: "It's just a disaster. I don't know what the referee is doing here. I don't understand why they call him for a situation like this because there are many fouls [like this] in the first half."
The Switzerland bench erupted when the decision was announced at Kansas City Stadium, setting off wild celebrations among the pro-Argentina crowd. Embolo surrounded Pinheiro in animated disbelief, eventually broke down in tears, and had to be escorted down the tunnel by teammates.
"You can imagine how he's doing," Yakin said. "He is shattered. He couldn't help the team today. It hurts us and it hurts him. It was a referee mistake."
Mistaken identity has been a valid reason for VAR review since the technology's first implementation, but until this World Cup it was used for obvious cases - like when a referee cards the wrong player for a teammate's foul. That changed for the 2026 World Cup when IFAB expanded the definition to cover situations where a player is booked but the offense was committed by the other team. Yakin admitted he wasn't aware of the rule change, but he had strong opinions anyway.
"This is a rule that in my opinion has nothing to do with football," he said. "The fact that they introduced such a rule is just unnecessary. It is just extremely hurtful."
This was the second time the rule has been applied this way at the World Cup. In the US's opening game against Paraguay, US defender Tim Ream was initially yellow-carded, but VAR reviewed for mistaken identity and found that Paraguay's Miguel Almirón had dived, rescinding Ream's yellow and issuing it to Almirón. FIFA confirmed that was correct. Saturday's call will face more scrutiny, not only because of the quarter-final stage but because Argentina gained a one-man advantage just when they were losing control. Switzerland played all of extra time with ten men and conceded twice in nine minutes to exit the World Cup.