Mauricio Pochettino once again lashed out at Danny Makkelie and Pol van Boekel. The Argentina coach, who was recently sent away from Paris Saint-Germain, still believes the Dutch arbitrators are guilty of PSG’s elimination from last season’s Champions League.
In the quarter-finals of the billion-dollar ball in the 2021/22 volume, the French superpower, with Pochettino at the helm, played against Real Madrid. After the first leg in Paris had ended in a 1-0 win for PSG and it quickly led to 0-1 in the Estadion Santiago Bernabéu, the battle seemed over. Real came back into the game after all with a goal from Karim Benzema, who punished keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma’s fiddling. In the run-up to that goal, the French striker seemed to foul Donnarumma.
However, Makkelie did not whistle for it and Van Boekel, who looked at the situation as a VAR, did not think it necessary to advise his colleague another decision. In the end, Benzema’s 1-1 remained in place and the Madrilenians went on to win 3-1 and qualify for the semi-finals. PSG was left furious and that anger has still not completely cooled off at Pochettino. “It’s unjust,” he tells marca. “It was a violation and if the VAR had just intervened, I wouldn’t talk about the elimination against Real now. Then we would have talked about something else.”
After the game, the Argentine coach was already angry, as were PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and technical director Leonardo. They came to recover from Makkelie and his friends in a physical way and could hardly be controlled. In an interview, Pochettino said that he was able to show some understanding for this. “It is also not possible not to talk about this grave mistake,” he said.
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