Thomas Letsch is angry with Bas Nijhuis after the 3-0 defeat of Vitesse against Sparta Rotterdam. The trainer of the Arnhem team is of the opinion that his team has been denied a pure penalty kick, when Adil Auassar got the ball on his hand in the first half within the sixteen. Nijhuis, on the other hand, says in front of the camera ESPN that he it never never finds a penalty kick.
“I am also angry with the referee,” Letsch said in conversation with ESPN. “When I see the images, it is a clear penalty. It was still 0-0 at the time, so the game could have gone in a completely different direction. Of course I’m more angry with the players, because this was one of our worst performances of the season. But I cannot understand this decision of the referee. ”
“There will be people who say that this is a handball”, Nijhuis agrees afterwards. “But I think it’s a difference. The ball is played in by Vitesse and he tries to avoid the ball, to turn it away from the situation. I think it’s never never intentionally hands. It is interpretation, there will also be referees who think it is a penalty. For me it is never never intent. It was an easy decision for me on the field and got immediate comment from the VAR, in this case Allard Lindhout, who thought the same. So we were on the same page. ”
“I understand that sometimes a penalty is given for it during the season and not the other time. For me, the difference here is that the ball came from an own player and went away from the goal. How can you speak of a penalty kick? Difficult, isn’t it, hands. We will never get over that, ”Nijhuis emphasizes. Auassar says the referee said to him that he should have ‘officially’ given a penalty kick.
The conscious handball of Adil Auassar.
“But the ball goes the other way and is shot against you and does not go towards the goal. So I like character. Coincidentally, it is now in my favor so it is easy for me to talk ”, admits the midfielder and captain of Sparta. “I think I was shocked. I have my hands really, really high, right? Maybe it is also a penalty. ”