Diego Simeone questioned the decision to disallow Julián Álvarez‘s crucial penalty in Real Madrid‘s Champions League shootout win over Atlético Madrid, insisting “the ball doesn’t move” after VAR decided the forward had kicked the ball twice.
The round-of-16 tie finished 2-2 on aggregate on Wednesday, after Conor Gallagher‘s early goal gave Atlético a 1-0 win at the Metropolitano to force extra time.
In the shootout, Kylian Mbappé, Jude Bellingham, Fede Valverde and Antonio Rüdiger all converted for Real. Álvarez’s penalty was ruled out after the VAR deemed that the Argentina international had touched the ball with both feet as he slipped when striking the ball.
“I’ve just seen the images, the referee says Julián touches the ball with his supporting leg, but the ball doesn’t move,” Simeone said in his post-match news conference. “That’s debatable, whether it was a goal or not. But I’m proud of my players, I’m honestly happy, because we competed in an exemplary way.”
Real Madrid will now play Arsenal in the quarterfinals, with the first leg on April 8, and the return on April 16.
Atlético dominated much of Wednesday’s game, and Simeone said he was “at peace” with the result, because “the team gave everything.”
“When Julián kicks [the penalty], the ball doesn’t even move a bit,” Simeone said. “I imagine that they called the VAR and saw that he touched it. I want to believe that they’ll have seen that he touched it.”
Simeone then repeatedly challenged journalists in the news conference to “raise your hand” if they thought Álvarez’s penalty should have been disallowed.
“I felt that he touched the ball twice and I told the referee,” Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois said. “It’s not easy to see that. It was a bit of bad luck.”
When told of Simeone’s comments, Courtois added: “For UEFA, it’s clear. I’m sick of this victimhood, always crying about things like this. Referees don’t want to benefit one team or another in Spain or in Europe, for them it was clear. With the technology, in the VAR room they saw it clearly, they have a lot of cameras and a lot of images.”
“It looks to me like he touches it with his left foot,” coach Carlo Ancelotti agreed. “[Penalties] are a lottery, heads or tails. It came up heads today. Atletico go out with their heads high.”
Ancelotti revealed that he’d planned to allow young forward Endrick to take the fifth and decisive spot kick, before opting for Rüdiger, who scored.
“We had doubts between Endrick and Rüdiger,” Ancelotti said. “I saw Endrick’s face, and I thought ‘better Rüdiger’!”
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