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Barcelona-Alavés: The Handball Rule Still Confuses People

Did Samuel Umtiti have an uncalled penalty in Barcelona’s 2-1 victory over Deportivo Alavés?

Maybe, but it wasn’t given. There was also this incident, when Luis Suárez scored the equalizer. The ball scraped off Gerard Piqué’s hand.

There’s a lot of confusion about the hand ball issue. The rules state that in order for a penalty or free kick to be called, the player must intentionally play the ball using their hand.

The tricky thing is, short of mind reading, you can never tell for 100% sure whether someone was doing something intentionally or accidentally.