After the elimination in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, Thomas Tuchel is targeting the Polish arbitration, which consisted of referee Szymon Marciniak and video referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski. Chelsea won 1-3 against Real Madrid on Tuesday evening, but were eliminated in extra time due to a goal by Karim Benzema. Tuchel is not happy about a meeting between Marciniak and Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti.
“I am disappointed that the referee had a nice chat with my colleague Carlo Ancelotti afterwards. Carlo is a nice man, I wanted to go to him to thank him for the match.” GOAL afterwards out of Tuchel’s mouth. “I saw the referee laughing out loud with the opponent’s coach. That was at the wrong time, shortly after the final whistle of a 120-minute game in which a team gave their all and fought to the last gasp. You step off the field and see the referee laughing at the other coach. That timing is very, very bad. I told him that.”
Chelsea saw a goal by Marcos Alonso in regular time canceled after interference from VAR, while there was also a chagrin about adding too little extra time. “When you play against Real Madrid, you can expect that not everyone has the same guts. That was in the small decisions, both in the first leg and the return. I did not see the disallowed goal, but I told the referee that I was very disappointed that he did not come to see the footage himself. In a match like this you have to stay in control as a referee and not let the decisions be made by someone from his chair, who doesn’t notice the atmosphere.”
“A referee has a certain style, he allows certain things and follows a line. If he looks at the images himself, he can explain it better,” continues Tuchel. “That’s my opinion. I think we deserved more minutes at the end as it felt like no time was added after the second half of the overtime. Maybe that’s asking too much in these kind of matches against this opponent. We had it in our hands and were not happy enough.”
Carlo Ancelotti: ‘Chelsea pressure gave us advantage in extra time’
“We won this diptych based on our energy. The pressure from Chelsea was very strong and that gave us an advantage in extra time,” Ancelotti said afterwards. “I switched to get energy into the team. The team struggled and the players gave their all. We didn’t deserve to be 0-2 behind, we conceded goals from standard situations due to the absence of Éder Militao. After the 0-2 we got a mental blow, but the magic of the Bernabéu helped us a lot. The harder it is, the happier I am.”