Carlo Ancelotti, Real Madrid’s Italian coach, complained about the referee’s performance in his team’s draw against Girona, focusing mainly on the action of the penalty, in which he said that Marco Asensio “has not touched the ball with his hand” and that both the VAR and the referee “have invented it”.
“I don’t really like to talk about this but I’m talking today,” Ancelotti warned in his first response to his appearance, changing his usual profile when asked about the referee’s performance. “The first situation is quite clear, it’s not a penalty because he doesn’t touch the ball with his hand”
“I have spoken with Asensio and he touches the ball with his chest, it is true that his left hand was in a slightly strange position, but it covered the body, it did not make it bigger. There may be doubts if he touches it, but he simply has not touched the ball with his hand, they have invented it”, he criticized.
Asensio, for his part, still does not understand, even after asking referee Melero López for an explanation after the game, why he pointed to a handball and a penalty, which caused Girona’s final 1-1 draw against Real Madrid, in an action that the footballer himself cataloged as “definition of no hand”.
“Definition of NO HAND that they explain to us at the beginning of the season… incredible that today it is…”, the Real Madrid winger wrote on his social networks. A message along with which he published the fragment of the video that from the VOR room they put to the referee so that he could review the action, concluding that it was a penalty.
Ancelotti was more understanding in the disallowed goal against the Brazilian Rodrygo Goes, when the referee interpreted the rule that having the goalkeeper’s hand resting on the ball is a foul for snatching the ball from him when shooting on goal.
“The second is more debatable because the goalkeeper doesn’t have total control of the ball with his hand, but he can whistle, I’m not going to discuss it. What surprises me is the penalty that came at a key moment in the game because it was on track, It had cost us to score without spectacular football but we had been 2-0 with Asensio and this situation leaves us with two points less in the table”, he lamented.
Ancelotti recognized this Sunday, after criticizing the arbitration for the penalty awarded to Marco Asensio, that his team is not “at the level” of a week ago and is suffering “some problems”. “We are not at the level we were last week. We have had some problems with the return of injured players who have coached little, like Modric or Valverde, what happened to Rodrygo or Tchouaméni’s discomfort today. We are playing a lot of games and we noticed the tiredness”, he analysed.
“These are moments of difficulty, but they haven’t affected us much yet because on Wednesday we have the opportunity to be first in the group in the ‘Champions’ and the goal is to reach the League leaders at the break. For now, we have it in hand”, he added.
Ancelotti assured that “it is not a good time of the season” to play good football and that it is very difficult to win games easily against any rival. “I don’t see anyone playing spectacular football, all the teams are suffering. Every game is difficult against any team, it’s normal that the level is not excellent because there are too many games and there is no time to recover physically or mentally,” he said.
Despite this, the Italian coach defended that his squad is “strong” and that it is time to prove it in the three games that remain until the World Cup. “Words are blown away by the wind and we have to prove it on the pitch. We have two home games and the complicated trip to Rayo’s home to do it,” he said, before lamenting the state of the Bernabéu pitch and making it clear that no player His is absent from the game to think about the World Cup.
“We make an objective evaluation, it is not fear for the World Cup. The players who have not played today was not to risk an unnecessary injury at this time,” he said.
