Carlo Ancelotti has revealed that he and Jurgen Klopp agreed with the decision to not award Real Madrid a penalty during the closing stages of their Champions League clash with Liverpool last night.
Kostas Tsimikas, who came on as a substitute for the final few minutes at the Santiago Bernabeu, saw the ball deflect off his thigh and then onto his arm after blocking an effort from Rodrygo which prompted a lengthy VAR review.
On field referee Felix Zwayer was sent to the pitch side monitor to review the incident, much to the bemusement of our German tactician, but was happy to stick with his initial decision to not award a spot kick.
“We agree that it was not a handball,” Ancelotti told Movistar (as quoted by HITC). “We talked about yesterday’s penalty which was crazy, really, the penalty against Leipzig.
“Be careful with this because this is not football, whistle a penalty like that in a Champions League. I don’t think anyone had noticed – not even [Pep] Guardiola realised that they were calling that penalty.”
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There was absolutely nothing our Greek full-back could do to avoid the ball from striking his arm.
For the incident to even be reviewed, never mind take a few minutes, is bizarre and and the sooner the handball rule is cleared up the better.
It’s interesting that Ancelotti referenced the penalty Manchester City were awarded against RB Leipzig on Tuesday night because it certainly felt extremely harsh on the German outfit.
There are a lot of positives that VAR’s introduction has brought to the game but when the technology is intervening for the wrong reasons that’s when we have a problem.