A storm of indignation battered the VAR this Saturday in Balaídos in the match between Celta and Sevilla and sent it to the ground. Where the inclement weather did not reach, the fury of the Vigo squad did, which so far in the League has accumulated various grievances in referee decisions on and off the field of play. The situation reached the point that a club delegation traveled to Madrid less than two weeks ago to hold a meeting with Luis Medina Cantalejo, the referee’s boss. But a few hours after that match, a decisive goal in Girona was incomprehensibly disallowed. Then the VAR did not appear to warn the referee that he had made a glaring error in a clash between Gazzaniga and Dotor. “On nights like this we can only say: this competition deserves much more,” the club then settled through its social networks, with the Celtic shield on a blackened mourning.
This Saturday the Vigo stadium and its surroundings were filled with banners with messages related to the situation. And in the 96th minute, with the score tied (1-1), Murphy entered with his relentless law through the front door of Balaídos. The referee, the experienced Hernández Hernández, declared a penalty that seemed obvious by Jesús Navas on the light blue forward Douvikas. But from the video arbitration room they called a chapter, the action was re-arbitrated and went into the limbo of controversy. Immediately, three whistles sounded; and curtain.
The next act opened immediately. Captain Iago Aspas, who had been substituted, motioned for the team to leave the field and in the middle of a stalemate the monitor on which Hernández Hernández watched the replay for long minutes ended up on the ground after Aspas shook him. Now he faces a sanction for conduct contrary to good sporting order. “With all that they owe us, we should almost be in the Champions League,” the Celta captain resolved as soon as he had a microphone in front of him. But his team is still in relegation positions. “In twelve days they have harmed us in seven,” laments the Celta emblem before adding: “They call the VAR to see the intensity of a grab, which is re-arbitrated when it has already been whistled.”
It happened that Navas had hooked up with Douvikas in a one-on-one in the area. In the television images, and this is what the referee saw live, a grab can be seen on the arm and hand of the Celta striker. There is even a doubt as to whether Navas’s foot blocks the Greek attacker, who makes a slight gesture with his other arm as he falls. “Anyone who has played soccer interprets it as a penalty,” said coach Rafa Benítez, who on his return to Spanish soccer has encountered a situation that he had never experienced, more than anything due to the repetition of disasters. «You see that it is one after the other. I would like someone to explain it to me.”
In that carousel of nonsense two surnames were heard in Vigo in recent days. Prieto Iglesias is a referee with an unusual history: twice he was relegated from First to Second due to his poor performances, two other times he had been promoted. In 2020 he left the top category to whistle in the silver until May 2022 and immediately rejoined the VAR. Last summer he celebrated a third promotion to the top flight, now at the helm of the monitors. In two of the most regretted grievances by Celta so far this season, against Mallorca and especially Las Palmas, he was the protagonist. “It is a surprise that he is in the VAR again,” Benítez said this Friday, one day before stumbling over the same stone again. In the run-up, the coach wanted to temper the bagpipes when he learned that Pietro Iglesias would be in the VOR room to referee, once again, a Celta match: “Surprise at the appointment, although the word that seems most appropriate to me is respect. I see it as positive, because since what everyone has seen has been so evident, I am convinced that they are going to be much more attentive so that everything goes well and there is no decision that we later have to talk about.”
Between disbelief, stupefied and angry, the veteran Celta coach tried to manage the situation after the game. “I can’t get over my astonishment,” he explained while searching for irony. “You still have to incorporate a physicist into the VAR to measure what is sufficient strength and be the one to decide.” Benítez believes that the impact of the referees on the classification of a team that scores seven points can be measured in eight, nine or ten more. “Penalties have to be called from the field. “It is very difficult to explain this in the UEFA committees that I go to,” he lamented.
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