Michael Oliver

thought it was very harsh......

You can't give a pen unless you are 100% certain. NO way it was a def penalty, so shouldn't have been given.

It was no push at all. If you push someone your arms forcefully extend in front of you. Benatia arms moved backwards yet Vasquez fell forward in the opposite direction.

Problem is, it's difficult to tell completely twelve hours later, whereas the ref has to make a decision right then. Hence, VAR needed. But he needed to be certain it was a penalty, and I can't believe he was

Thought it was a pen. Got to give credit to the ref for having the balls to make that call given how easy it would have been to take the safe option, knowing both teams would have another 30 minutes to duke it out.

No credit for giving the penalty to the home side..now if he had given it to the Italians that's another matter.

Even Var would not have sorted that one , its a matter of opinion so who decides in the end ? , very unfortunate for the Italians who played the game of their lives

It is simply one for the romantics. Plucky Juve come back from 3 down only to conceded a pen in the last minute. Add to which the shame of one of the greatest players of all time getting sent off in his final CL match. Sad, but I think the ref applied the rules properly.

Apr 12, 2018 -- 11:22AM, twizzle22 wrote:

No credit for giving the penalty to the home side..now if he had given it to the Italians that's another matter.

If he'd given a penalty to the Italians when the ball was at the other end of the pitch, that would indeed have been courageous.

hello stranger

Stupid and clumsy challenge, player went down easy but entitled to, not a stone waller but silly challenge, seen a lot worse given that that one last night

Great challenge, made clean, clear contact with the ball.

Was a pen alright, a soft one but a penalty none the less.
If the player made a challenge from behind like that outside the box it would have been a free straight away, so penalty was to correct decision imo.

Funny but I always thought that if a tackler made a successful contact on the ball before any part of his body touched any part of the opponents body, it was not a foul, so long as the subsequent contact wasn't intentionally nasty. Silly me.

Pen for me. Defender pushes him in the back with both hands. He got his foot around him and got the ball with his shin but also kicked the player in the chest with his boot before or at the same time, but all that was after the push.

https://twitter.com/engyalaa/status/984179759830757376

at best it was a very soft penalty and i very much doubt he'd have given it at the other end, madrid get a lot of decisions like this, i think in games of this importance it needs to be clear cut, it wasnt

buffon will regret his actions and probably said something that deserved a red, this made ronaldos job easier knowing he had a weaker keeper to beat and if he missed they then had 30 minutes against 10 men to go through, poor from someone of his experience if understandable

Superb shout Mes, great challenge??, have you ever played football?, if so when were you taught that you need to use your hands to make a tackle, whether or not it was a hard enough push to make him go over is irrelevant esp in the modern game but to say its a great challenge sums up your argument because the great challenge started with the 2 hands on the back of the player before any contact with the ball

jon b  12 Apr 18 12:42

Stupid and clumsy challenge, player went down easy but entitled to, not a stone waller but silly challenge, seen a lot worse given that that one last night




if as ref i was in any doubt as to whether pen or not, any thought that attacker had gone down cos he felt he was entitled to would always sway me in favour of No Pen

By the letter of the law it was a pen, but its time the laws changed. A penalty is a game changer whenever its given with around 90% chance of a goal and don't believe just any foul in the area should result in such a draconian price to pay for the team that concedes it. How many games are changed due to a little tap or ball being blasted at a hand etc because it's technically a foul- it's like using a sledge hammer to smash a peanut with the size of consequences resulting from something relatively innocuous. I think penalties should only be given if it denies a clear goal scoring opportunity or a very serious foul.. the madrid player wouldnt have got the ball down in time to score IMO and it shouldnt be given.

We had it in the England vs Italy game where someones running pattern accidentally trod on another player, it makes a mockery of the game where something so minor affects the whole match. It should be for a blatant foul or not given at all. You could have the best tactician in the world leading in a game, someone accidentally brushes someone in the penalty area which is technically a foul and a game changer.. time the laws were updated like the back pass rule. Footballs a contact sport after all, it's not ballet dancing

jon your post about a player 'entitled' to go down was embarrassing.

Contact with players back was minimal, there was no push, Vasquez felt a touch and reacted, they're taught to do that.

Kind Regards.

everyone here would have been up in arms if it had been your team and not given. the juventus players knew it was a pen

did they? they did a pretty good impression of players that didnt

Usually when players know it's a pen, there's little protest

pen was't a pen either, change speed settings to 0.25 seconds

How do you do that in your head as it happens and as you have to make a decision in a split second - very impressive if you can do that old boy? It was a pen, if Juve don't get that at the other end (and I believe they would have) then their players react in the same way they did last night. No way anybody can say it def wasn't a pen - remembering some of the bs posted on here when posters are involved in the game more!

Leaving the penalty decision aside the game was simply too big for this ref, he looked terrified. The problem with refs in general now is that they go for the card before having a little chat with a player. Refs now come across as full of themselves with a 'how dare you' attitude if players protest. In any walk of life it's hard to keep the head if the other person just refuses to listen to you, let alone huge football games. The same refs aren't doing enough to stop diving either. A few of Ronaldos attempts to win a free were rightly waved away, so why wasn't he booked? As I said earlier the ref was out of his depth, and he's not the only one at this level of the game.

whether you like VAR or not it makes absolute sense in situations like this, 2 big clubs with their seasons main focus all decided by a split second decision made under huge pressure by the ref, much better to refer incidents like this and take the heat out of the situation, the other night in an MLS game a striker was red carded for simulation in the box (2nd yellow) it was correctly changed by VAR to a penalty and no sending off, a huge turnaround to say the least

would var have helped here ? still people arguing if pen or not.

thats the point, it wasnt clear so no pen

but no way it would have been overturned on VAR or any sort of replay system assuming the onfield decision gets the benefit of any doubt

no, but i think if oliver had had the option of referring it instead of making a decision (as we see refs doing in leagues using VAR), he would have done so this situation given there must have been some doubt and what was at stake

but then is he not guilty of reffing the occasion and not the match ?

if we want the officials to be jobsworths then many more situations should probably be referred but thats not very practical and so it needs to be used sensibly

there is so much pushing and pulling in the game now i believe its the correct decision and it should be penalised every time. A push is a foul, as is a pull.

For all those saying it was a pen, does the entire tie deserve to be settled on such a soft "foul" or is it time we look at what constitutes a penalty. Common sense should prevail , if we gave a penalty with every " foul" we would have ten a game and itd turn into rugby with conversion rates of penalties being the main factor in buying a striker than flair.

you surely cant chose which laws to invoke and which not to. remember de jongs drop kick in wc final of 2010, webb chose  not to send him off.
sorry but you cant keep someone on the pitch who has just dropped kicked someone irrespective if its a wc final or not ( wouldnt shock me min if there was a fifa directive to try and keep 22 on pitch if possible ) .

I doubt any ref looking at VAR wouldn't have given a penalty. Just because people are debating it doesn't mean it's not clear cut under the rules. At best you could say it was one of those that could go either way, so I don't think Juve can complain. If it wasn't given Real could complain just as much.

But still a push just as he was stooping to head the ball and a clear pen for me. If the defender doesn't push him he's not getting any of the ball because he'd have headed it in by the time he got his leg around. He pushed him to put him off the header and impede him and to give him enough time to get to the ball. That's a foul all day long.

at the end of the day it was an almighty defensive mess up by juventus. free header back across the box and then at best a desperate challenge from behind to stop it being headed in from the middle of the 6 yard box. clutching at straws trying to pin it on a refereeing error

Football is and always has been a contact sport, but now if there is even the slightest touch, players are falling down as if they have been poleaxed.

If the rules state any contact is a pen then we would have a dozen pens per match. Common sense has to be seen to prevail, and giving pens in the last seconds of a CL semi final when it is NOT clearly a foul is  going down the wrong road imo.

Quarter final

I'm not sure the guy would've scored anyway. The ball was too low and close to his body to head it, and he wasn't in a position to get a foot or even a knee to it. It was a clumsy and unnecessary challenge that gave the ref an excuse to give it. I suppose Italain defenders are used to getting away with challenges like that.

it doesn't have to be enough contact to knock him over if it's enough to put him off scoring a point blank header, which it was imo. The defender was powerless to stop him heading it unless he put him off and bought himself enough time to get to the ball. It's ok to put a guy off if you're making a legit challenge for the ball but where you're nowhere near the ball it's a clear foul to do that

We see too much snide pushing/holding/pulling in the penalty area but then we see too much diving too. Who'd be a referee lol.

Apr 12, 2018 -- 7:03PM, lurka wrote:

it doesn't have to be enough contact to knock him over if it's enough to put him off scoring a point blank header, which it was imo. The defender was powerless to stop him heading it unless he put him off and bought himself enough time to get to the ball. It's ok to put a guy off if you're making a legit challenge for the ball but where you're nowhere near the ball it's a clear foul to do that

watch it again , the ball was too low to head and too high to kick, would never have scored in a million years

basically UEFA had an Italian team, a German team, an English team and desperately needed a Spanish team to go through otherwise they would have lost an enormous financial market.

ref was probably under orders to make sure madrid got through.

doesn't matter, he could have headed it and missed and it looked like he was about to head it. He was nudged in the back off the ball and the opportunity was taken from him. That's a foul

Apr 12, 2018 -- 7:29PM, lurka wrote:

doesn't matter, he could have headed it and missed and it looked like he was about to head it. He was nudged in the back off the ball and the opportunity was taken from him. That's a foul

If a tie is decided on a foul where it " doesn't matter " if it was given , its time the rules changed where little nudges dont ruin 3 hours of competitive football.

Who wants to watch a sport where the outcome is decided on who feigns injury/ dives better or blows over  screaming penalty when the wind gets up. One of the reasons I stopped betting on football, no amount of analysis can factor this into account and it happens over and over in every league in the world and ruins it as a spectacle. If you applied the letter of the law literally , half of all corners would end in penalties with all the jostling going on.. refs need to use common sense and a debatable foul in the last minute where the striker didnt look like scoring is ridiculous.

nudged in the back LOL.

His hands barely made contact, you could see as soon as Vasquez felt something he flung himself to the floor.

Never a penalty.

I think we all know the rules have gone soft, Mike Dein a couple of seasons back was giving pens for very soft contact or pull of a shirt, he was setting records in his first half dozen games or so I remember, so many replays shown some given and panellists agreeing with decision and others not given which look almost identical and panellists agreeing with decisions, it has become almost a non contact area as we,ve seen so many soft ones given.   Mes, you,l be down to one hand barely touched him by the end of the thread

isn't rugby the game where ya can purposely put yer hands on your opponents?

Seen it from various angles, not 1 showed any force whatsoever, player simply felt contact on his back, the ball was gone, so he fell down no doubt, end of thread.

if it was 10 yds farther out and a few men between him and the goal and the same challenge was made,ie like every corner would he have give a pen, not a chance

how various mes, keep clutching at them straws

go back to your arsenal box jon lol, more than 2 years since I wound you up and I'm still in your head, move on.

so if jack wheelchair is in same position in semi second leg v a madrid nicely poised at 0-0 after 0-0 in first leg, same thing happens i take it you will shout from your bedsit in cockneyland ' play on , never a pen' ?

At least I can spell the place I come from you silly tart

I think mes is right.
The kid vazquez chickens out of the diving header.
He goes down for the pen. THe cowards way out.
What Nat Lofthouse or Tommy Lawton would make of that is anyones business.

What I dont get is why refs choose the last minute of these games to give these daft decisions?
Maybe Oliver was indeed knackered and couldnt be bothered with extras

Or maybe the ref just thought it was penalty and that was that.Time we abided by the ref's decision regardless or we have no games.

Amen treetop.

OR

We could realise its 2018 and use a thousand different angles to see whether his 1 angle was correct and learn not to be so submissive to authority when reality tells us he is just as likely to affected by external factors when making decisions, from the home crowd, UEFA, friends that gamble.

The goal should be to take the human out of the decision making process altogether, so there's no need for the "bad" ones you get to balance out over the course of the season. Everything judged in exactly the same terms.  Given the quality of cameras and the introduction of sensors on the ball/player clothing, we can't be that far away from it being possible to use a neural network to train a system to at least perform as well as the current crop of referees?  I'd be amazed if someone's not already working on it.

when RM put BM out in the q/f last year there was this ridiculous red card for vidal in the bernabeu at a crucial time in the tie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7W17lEQqJI

and RM scored 2 offside goals

its sort of what happens there!

That penalty is pretty much as clear as you'll get. They are virtually always a matter of opinion but the defender has bundled into the back of him when he's in front of goal. Might as well do away with penalties completely if you're going to say that isn't one.

initially i thought the defender had bundled him but the contact is actually minimal if you watch carefully on the replay and within 'normal' limits for allowed contact, its the 'normal' limits that is key here or the game becomes a non contact sport, i've seen lots of worse cases this weekend not given (some overturned by VAR)

rather apt that this comes at the end of a season when reffs,pundits,players,ex players,fans plenty on here have been squealing that just because theres contact doesn't make it a foul,using this seasons barometer no way was that contact enough for the striker to go down

Maradona: It wasn't a penalty, but Vazquez did what I would have done

what a load of nonsense, maradona would have buried it before benatia got there!

Think Maradonna would have punched it in with the help of God of course.

Getting nudged in the back (more than a nudge imo anyway) when you are about to chest the ball is clearly going to have an impact on your ability to keep control of the ball. Therefore it's a penalty. I would have thought anyone who has played football would understand that. Whether he has to go down or not is irrelevant.

but thats good modern day defending, if you've played the game, as you suggest, surely you would realise this, so many players miss narrowly when heading the ball due to these subtle nudges, it doesnt take much, but its not a penalty even though he might have scored otherwise, benatia is a top defender because he knows how much he can get away with, the reports from neutral (non-english) refs suggest it was a harsh decision, i think that backs up my impression but everyone will have their view and clearly macmanaman thought it was a pen in the vt

VAR will come in to the CLsoon because of situations like this, no one wants it but in knock out competitions these calls are too critical

Maradonna backing me up, end of thread.

you can nudge a guy when making a legit challenge for the ball. Here the nudge was off the ball. that's the difference. People talking about enough contact to go down really don't have a clue

most common phrase used by tv pundits you cant always win the ball but do enough to put him under pressure, never a penalty in 6 million years if it was a slight push of a corner

Rider, you've basically confirmed it's a penalty. 'He might have scored otherwise' says he was impeded by a nudge/push in the back. That's a penalty. The fact that you sometimes get away with it is irrelevant. As Lurka says,  quite clearly it's different when it's a challenge with both players going up together and there is a bit of contact. Sometime that's unavoidable. In this case the attacker is about to control the ball when the defender goes into the back of him. Even Buffon knew it was a penalty. His complaints were that the ref 'didn't have a heart', not that he had got it wrong. Utter nonsense.

same reff not only didn't give carroll a pen for a push tonight but disallowed the goal because of a handball caused by the push

yes its the lack of consistency that is the issue, we can all be jobsworths and say technically its a pen but then you would have penalties at every corner etc, of course benatia makes contact and of course thats intended to put vazquez off, but its within the normal limits of tolerance, as i said the neutral ex referees described it as 'harsh', privately oliver would probably admit that the immense pressure of the bernabeu got to him in that moment (as it has for so many referees before) and if he wasnt consistent with himself in last nights game, then its case proven.

I just think the pendulum has swung too far the way of the forward players.
Time was the likes of marco van basten got kicked out of the game.
Now the forwards are diving without even trying to score.
Look I can see why oliver gave that pen, even tho i disagree with the decision. For me there was more simulation from vazquez than foul from benatia.
Maybe the score needs to be evened up.
If a forward goes down in the box and appeals for a pen then the ref must be mandated to give a yellow card for diving or  the spot kick.
At the moment penalties have about a 75% conversion rate. Perhaps if the keeper was allowed to come off the line as soon as the ref blew the whistle that would swing the balance in the keepers favour a bit more.
If the conversion rate dropped to about 50% then there wouldnt be so much of a fuss.
But I still do not get why refs feel the need to give soft pens, and that one was at best soft, in the dying minutes of such an important game.