Italian refereeing experts explain why VAR made those two contentious penalty decisions in favour of Juventus against Verona.
The match was decided by a deflected Moise Kean strike, but the focus was mainly on two incidents in the Bianconeri penalty area in the second half.
On the first, the ball struck Danilo on the hand from point-blank range, and although his arm was raised in an unnatural position, VAR considered it to be an unfair punishment with that change of direction.
Crucially, as explained by DAZN’s former referee Luca Marelli and Gianpaolo Calvarese at Sky Sport Italia, the ball was not going towards the goal either, making it a less decisive block.
Danilo was reacting to the original shot from Miguel Veloso, but it was redirected straight at his hand from point-blank range by Pawel Dawidowicz, effectively after it had already gone past the Juve player.
“It would’ve been different if Danilo had touched the ball directly from Veloso’s shot.”
Nonetheless, it still might’ve warranted a VAR on-field review so the referee could make that judgment himself.
As for the second incident, the referee did award a penalty for Leonardo Bonucci’s high foot on Simone Verdi.
However, it was revoked following an on-field review because the footage clearly shows Bonucci got the ball first.
“He touches the ball and then it is Verdi who fouls Bonucci, so it is correct to revoke the penalty and give a free kick to Juve,” added Marelli.
Great, nobody knows the rules of the game…
Nice to see the VAR ref show common sense for a change.
We need to go back to ball to hand or hand to ball ..it’s nonsense that a ball flicked into a defender’s hand and the defender not moving his hand towards the ball, that it should be called
Ridiculous argument. The ball touched the hand and therefore it’s a handball plain ans simple. Suspicious decisions and futile arguments overshadows the beauty of the game.
Thing is Danilo was looking away, not even seeing where the ball was going. And that Twitter from BT, “Bonucci’s tackle in the box”. What tackle?! Verdi kicked Bonucci instead of the ball, clearly a foul by Verdi.
These are all loopholes that always favour the Old lady. Always the same thing. They do it now with VAR imagine what they did without it.
Ridiculous arguments. Have seen penalties given on serie A for much less since when a hand is mot a hard anymore because the ball is past other players. Give us a break.