Villarreal-Real Madrid left a lively show that underscored what football has to make you fall in love and also two penalties for the referee seminars of those who despair those who play it and think about the field. Carlo Ancelotti summed up the resignation in two sentences, which correspond to a regulation letter which he understands does not correspond to the spirit of the game they play: “Football has also changed in this respect. There’s a rule,” he said. “Taking the two penalties under the rules was the right thing to do, but football fans don’t like that.”
The part of the game in which the VAR used the magnifying glass with millimeter precision was short: just five minutes. From Foyth to Foyth. It started when Tchouaméni luffed a ball behind the defense until Vinicius ran alongside the Argentine full-back, who, while orienting himself in the race, put out his arm to measure where the Brazilian was going. As the pass came down, the ball landed on Foyth’s outstretched hand, unnoticed by everyone except Vinicius, who controlled it anyway and returned it to Benzema, who Foyth himself blocked a shot that seemed easy. The Brazilian didn’t lament the missed opportunity, instead gesturing desperately at his arm.
No one understood what he meant as there was no mistaking how Foyth had cleared the Frenchman’s shot. But after dozens of replays, in the VOR room in Las Rozas, they saw what Vinicius had seen a few inches from his face, and they warned Soto Grado to get closer to the band to share the discovery. Benzema fooled Pepe Reina, the starter the day after Villarreal sold Rulli to Ajax, and Madrid equalized the goal they scored in one of their flawed starts from behind, forced by good pressure from Setién’s men. Although Madrid hardly held.
When play resumed, Foyth recovered his sentence with an even more limited sentence and seminar of scholars than his. David Alaba slipped trying to block an inside pass from the Argentine and landed his right hand on the grass. An instinctive gesture. Foyth then slipped into the pass and the Austrian centre-back tried to move his arm out of the way of the ball. Another instinctive gesture. And a great paradox. The ball hit him in the hand he pulled back and just because he pulled it back Soto Grado awarded a penalty. If I had left it upright, it wouldn’t have worked. According to the rule.
However, Raúl Albiol didn’t seem convinced: “To be honest, I don’t whistle for either of the two penalties. while I was in the field. I don’t know what it will look like later on TV. But I have Foyth’s on…” he said. “I think theirs are arm-supported, I don’t know… I don’t whistle those penalties on the field. Very dubious penalties are imposed.”
Thibaut Courtois stressed the restrictive and perhaps counter-intuitive nature of the decisions, particularly Alaba’s maximum penalty: “David still has one hand on the floor because he slipped, he wants to get up. So in the end it doesn’t matter if you fall, if it’s your supporting hand… He can’t let go of his hands. I don’t know what the legal position is on this. You have never given us such an example. Let’s see if they come back in the summer to talk to us and take it as an example and explain it to us”. The Madrid goalkeeper also saw the penalty as a compensation for the borderline nature of the kick: “When you whistle for a penalty, it was a bit doubtful for us because they don’t see the ball [Foyth]You’ll whistle that too.”
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