Beaten at home 3 goals to 2 by Paris Saint-Germain, the players of Olympique Lyonnais fell back to seventh place in the Ligue 1 standings and are now five points behind the podium. A disappointment for Les Gones who immediately attacked the match referee, Benoît Bastien. Concretely, the Rhone residents criticize the game director for three refereeing errors which could have changed the course of the match according to them: the non-whistled hand of Illia Zabarnyi in his penalty area (27th), the goal of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia awarded after an intervention from behind by Vitinha on Tanner Tessmann (35th) and finally the contact between Kang-in Lee and Nicolas Tagliafico in the Parisian area just before the break (42nd).
Three facts of play that infuriated Paulo Fonseca’s assistant, Jorge Maciel. “I think there are 59,000 people at the stadium, there are only four who didn’t look at the fouls that we analyzed. We don’t even have to watch the replays. When it happens one way, we don’t understand. When it happens in the arrogance of not even having the opportunity to discuss, we don’t understand. We see Nico (Tagliafico), he is sent off. But how many faults did Afonso (Moreira) suffer? They didn’t take boxes. I think that up front, they are the best team in Europe. I think they don’t need to play with 16, because I count the VAR too, against a team which played on Thursday, which prepared the match very well and which played a good match. » But it was above all the Lyon sports director, Matthieu Louis-Jean, who was the most virulent against the refereeing quartet of the meeting.
The DA not unanimous on Vitinha-Tessmann case
“Tonight (yesterday), there is extreme disappointment because we consider that there were significant refereeing errors. And once again, we are completely incomprehensible (…) Listen, there is a penalty from Zabarnyi. There is a hand that is clear, in my opinion, we saw the slow motion. On Tanner Tessmann, there is a foul, he touches the knee. It’s blatant. At some point, I don’t know what to do. We tried everything. We talked. We talked with them. We even went to see them. But it continues. We don’t understand. There is a real problem of consistency in the arbitration. (…) It’s starting to do a lot. Again, what can we do? What should we do? We tried everything. We tried the exchanges, we went to see them. They explain things to us. And there, it starts to do a lot. A lot for us. We fight with our means. It’s not easy. We don’t have a plethoric squad, but we are given red cards, once again. And when I see the last Strasbourg match, it took five minutes to send off the Strasbourg player for an attack on Malick Fofana, etc. This is what I don’t understand. Why, due to Tessmann’s fault, does the VAR not call Mr. Bastien? This is a total incomprehension given the refereeing this evening. »
Faced with all these controversies, Amaury Delerue, the manager of Ligue 1 referees at the Arbitration Directorate (DA), spoke in the columns of The Team on each of the three controversial situations. Starting with Zabarnyi’s non-whistle hand. “The VAR followed IFAB protocol by viewing all angles and images at its disposal, none of which clearly showed that the decision not to call a penalty was wrong with certainty, and therefore whether Zabarnyi touched the ball or not.” Confident about this situation, the DA is also confident regarding the penalty not whistled on Tagliafico after contact with Lee. “For the DA, Lee’s intervention is not punishable under the laws of the game. It is a natural contact which did not prevent Tagliafico from playing the ball.” On the other hand, Delerue confirms that the Vitinha-Tessmann case posed many more problems. While he concedes that a foul would have been called in most cases, the member of the DA explains that the Portuguese midfielder from PSG took advantage of a gray area in the regulations to avoid being sanctioned. “This is a very complex situation on which the DA has not been able to determine a 100% unanimous position. (…) This contact impacts his ability to maintain control of the ball. This is why we would prioritize a foul on recovery and a disallowed goal. But we are in a gray zone, which is why the VAR’s decision not to challenge the central referee can be understood.” The clan of Ligue 1 referees deserves to have spoken out. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to soften the bitterness of the Lyonnais.
