Marciniak: “It was I who informed the VAR referees that there was a 99% chance that Álvarez twice played the ball”

Scymon Marciniakthe referee who led the Euroderbi between the Atlético de Madrid and Real Madridhe wanted to tell his version of the controversial penalty annulled to Julián Álvarez, who ended with the pass of the white team to the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

In the last hours, the referee has broken his silence to talk about how he analyzed the action live to make the decision. In statements for the medium ‘Win Win’, the Polish has denied that no Madrid player told him that they had to check a possible double touch: «I was I who informed the VAR referees that there was a 99% probability that Álvarez would touch the ball twice, and they checked it carefully. It is absolutely fake that Mbappé I told me nothing of the two touches ».

He also assured that he had never seen himself in a similar case: “To be honest, I had never faced a situation in my arbitration career, but the players know the rules.” However, something similar happened with Leo Messi’s penalty in the 2022 World Cup final, in which the Polish was also the referee. On that occasion, the goal went up to the score without any inconvenience despite the fact that the Argentine touched the ball twice.

For its part, before the controversy formed, UEFA wanted to show a video that ratified the decision, although in the statement they were open to modify the norm for the future: «Although it was minimumthe player did contact With the ball with the support foot before kicking it, as shown in the attached video. Under the current rule (rules of the game, rule 14.1), the VAR had to call the referee to indicate that the goal should be canceled. UEFA will establish conversations with FIFA and IFAB to determine if the rule must review In cases where a double touch is clearly involuntary».

However, in Atlétic mistake In the use of VAR we know that the final result of the party will never change. We are aware that, no matter how much an error in the use of the VAR, it will never change he result of a game. In any case, We regret deeply the ‘incident’ (as UEFA called it in its statement) produced and the terrible consequences he has had for us ».

«The delusion of millions of fans and the spectacular effort of our team. The football family must work together to improve and prevent situations like this from being repeated again. It is not in the DNA From Atlético Put Excuses nor divert attention. We get to work at the next challenges with Sunday’s game against Barcelona, ​​”he added.