Sandro Tonali said football ‘may as well be basketball’ and mocked referee Daniel Siebert’s cards for ‘ridiculous, embarrassing’ decisions, which ruined Milan’s Champions League clash with Chelsea.
The official seemed to go completely over the top in the first half especially at San Siro, not only awarding a penalty and red card for Fikayo Tomori’s slight touch on Mason Mount’s shoulder just 18 minutes in, but also flashing another five yellow cards too, all for a grand total of 17 fouls.
With six cards, it was more that had been dished out in the first half of any Champions League match this season in its opening 45 minutes.
“There are so many incidents like that during a game. When you give a penalty and a red card after 18 minutes, for a touch like that…” Tonali told Sky Sport Italia while watching the replay of Tomori’s challenge on Mount.
“We may as well make it basketball where any touch is a foul. It felt like that anyway, we had several yellow cards for ridiculous, embarrassing free kicks in the first half alone.
“Anyway, we have to look at the rest of the game. We tried to play with pride and passion, even if it was very difficult in the circumstances.
“It’s disappointing for all the fans who came here tonight, packed the stadium and expected a different match. We thank them for coming.”
All is not lost, as Chelsea are top of the group on seven points, followed by RB Salzburg on six, Milan and Dinamo Zagreb four.
“There are two games to go, everything is still to play for. We need to win, that is all we can do, without looking at penalties and red cards. It is still in our hands.
“We must be strong and able to turn this anger into football. The disappointment of not playing like Milan in the first match, the anger at the decisions tonight, we have to turn it all into positive energy for the next two matches.”
Tomori pulled the attacker with his both hands twice twice, but he didn’t go down still a penalty and a RED CARD. German referee was outstanding. Milan gets away with these fouls in Serie A SO THAT IS WHY FANS AND CLUB BOTH ARE WHINNING NOW.
That’s rich coming from an Inter fan as beneficiaries of a missed hand ball against V Barca.
Whatever… they lost 3-0 last week… they had no chance. Milans should look at themselves in the mirror..
The rules say you give a red card for taking away a clear scoring opportunity. By awarding a penalty, no clear scoring opportunity has been taken away! Thus no red card should be given. Yellow at most.
I’m aware that refs don’t agere on the interpretation of this rule! That’s the problem with calcio – too big variations in rule interpretations – which some were naive to think VAR would fix.
I watched the game . Been a milan fan they got well beaten. It shows italian football is still very poor and has too many forigners. Thanks maldini
Vincenzo, it is not to do with foreigners, rather the lack (compared to other countries) of economic might. Some of the best players to ever play in Serie A were foreign….Batistuta being one.
Blaming foreign players is an age old compliant, which is both misinformed and offensive
fear not. maldini is off to french speaking nations to bring a new batch in.
@ACM1899
What about the Pique handball at Nou Camp huh hypocritical moron?
Looney Toonali expected the usual favoritism from Italian refs so of course he is angry at an impartial ref making correct calls.