Munich woke up yesterday with the hope that what happened at the Santiago Bernabéu was a nightmare. But no. All the front pages in Germany took it upon themselves to remember the controversial move that could have changed everything in the semi-final match between Real Madrid and Bayern. It was the 104th minute of the game when referee Szymon Marciniak disallowed a goal by Matthijs De Ligt at the behest of the assistant. A goal that would have made it 2-2 and would have sent the game to overtime. The Polish referee did not allow the play to continue, he whistled and left the VAR without the possibility of intervening later to determine whether or not the Dutchman was offside.
“Scandal”, “absolute disaster”, “unbelievable”, “drama”, “nightmare”… The German press spared no adjectives to describe Bayern’s elimination in Madrid. The popular Bild called it a “scandalous scene”. “The referee deprived Bayern of the opportunity to equalize and thus go to extra time”, wrote the most read newspaper in Germany. According to Der Spiegel, it was “a nightmare from which it is better not to wake up”. The referee “was controversial and focused attention”, his action “raised questions and not only in Bayern”. Kicker also pointed out the Polish referee as the one responsible for “ruining Bayern’s dream due to Marciniak’s hasty whistle, which in the end was decisive”. Even the rotating TZ affirmed that “the refereeing performance was not worthy of the semi-finals of the Champions League”. “The refereeing error and the scandal make the team cry,” he wrote.
The team and staff were very touched. In the heat of the moment, just after the match, Thomas Tuchel did not bite his tongue and even assured that “this would not have happened the other way around”. The decision has greatly irritated the Bavarian club and no one wanted to overlook the controversy: “You have to have balls, courage, to raise the flag in a situation like this. It’s a major mistake. And then the referee, when he saw that we won the rebound, made the decision to blow the whistle when we finished in five seconds”, lamented the German coach.
Nor was Thomas Müller silent, who went back to a 2017 match against the whites, assuring that “playing against Real Madrid is always very strange”. “A situation like this is very strange, blowing the whistle so quickly… It happens a lot here in Madrid… I saw it a few years ago, with two goals from Cristiano Ronaldo, but that was before VAR”, he recalled.
Marciniak’s decision has not left anyone indifferent, even renowned Spanish referees such as Mateu Lahoz or Iturralde González have shown perplexity. “The disaster that no one wants to happen has happened, the worst thing that can happen in refereeing, that the VAR has not been able to help”, Mateu Lahoz lamented to Movistar, where he explained that “what disables the play is not that the linesman has raised the flag, but the whistle of the main referee. This disables the possibility that the VAR can help you”.
Iturralde González agreed with him, who described the intervention of the Pole and his assistant as “bad management”. “We can’t talk about a disallowed goal because the whistle blows before. The line must wait for the play to end”, he concluded.
