When the fixtures for La Liga were published before the start of the season, nobody would have imagined Barcelona's visit to the Mestalla as we near December would be a clash between the top two teams.
And yet, Valencia kicked off as the nearest chasers to Barcelona hoping to reduce the four-point gap on the league leaders in what has been a true Cinderella story for the side that flirted with relegation last season.
On Saturday night, however, the form that got them to where they currently are could not be found and Barca looked to have punished them for their poor play in the 30th minute only for a perfectly good goal to be ruled out.
A complete howler by Valencia keeper Neto who let a Messi shot through his legs was judged to have not crossed the line, and the replays looked utterly embarrassing for the officials.
"Why don't they have goal-line technology in Spain?" They do... From next season.
Messi was almost at the corner flag on his celebration run which shows you what he thought had happened, an utterly baffling decision in favour of the home side.
While VAR has proven to cause as many problems as it has solved during it's many trial runs, goal-line technology has been a huge help in erasing stuff like this from the top level of the game. The question now will be why it wasn't implemented earlier.
