Mauricio Pochettino is furious with Danny Makkelie and Pol van Boekel. The Paris Saint-Germain coach believes that a clear foul was made on Gianluigi Donnarumma in the run-up to Karim Benzema’s equalizer in the return of the eighth final of the Champions League, which was eventually won 3-1 by Real Madrid. Pochettino says in front of the camera from Canal+ that Real Madrid’s first goal changed the game.
“I wonder what the VAR is doing because I think Donnarumma is being fouled. It is a shame. When you see the replay, you see that it is a violation. Then the game changed,” Pochettino said. After the equalizer, Real Madrid ran out to a 3-1 victory by Benzema’s second and third goal of the evening, which was enough to brush away the 1-0 defeat in the first leg.
“It is impossible not to talk about this grave mistake. That’s hard to accept and I can’t forgive. What should I say next? I don’t want to talk about our game,” Pochettino continues. “It’s unbelievable that this is happening in 2022. I can’t believe it. Everything changed in the stadium. Our players were influenced by the situation and football is all about emotions. Yes, I have to admit we made some mistakes after the equaliser. But emotion changes football.”
“It’s difficult to manage a team after a game like that. This is the worst that could happen to us. It is very difficult to accept this result and analyze the situation. Benzema is fouling Donnarumma, I think. That’s hard to swallow. We all know that PSG has been chasing the Champions League for years. The players will be disappointed, but things like this happen. At this point you have to remember the good things. We can lose to Real Madrid, one of the best clubs in the world. But not like this,” Pochettino concluded. Leonardo – sporting director of PSG – also aimed at the Dutch arbitration afterwards.
We have another competition! †
After Donnarumma’s fumbling, it is suddenly 1-1 in the Bernabéu ??#ZiggoSport #UCL #RMAPSG pic.twitter.com/ohDmUoCccC
— Ziggo Sport Football (@ZS_Voetbal) March 9, 2022
“We can analyze many things, but we dominated in the first leg and the return. It’s not even an excuse, because Donnarumma was fouled,” said Leonardo. “Those situations have turned the game around, that is difficult to fix. It was decisive. That’s why we’re knocked out, which is difficult. We need to see what we did wrong. Now is not the time to jump to conclusions. Until halftime we thought we were superior and could win the Champions League. That’s why we have to look at why things happened.”
PSG did not just stick to words to the Dutch arbitration, because chairman Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and Leonardo went ‘banging and screaming’ afterwards in search of the dressing room of Makkelie, his assistants Hessel Steegstra and Jan de Vries and fourth man Allard Lindhout. Al-Khelaîfi is said to have broken a linesman’s flag and even issued a death threat to a Real Madrid employee who filmed the scene.