Once again, Chelsea have bad luck with a penalty appeal in the Champions League. Sir Alex Ferguson says Ramires went down ‘theatrically’; yeah, right, as theatrically as anyone who has just been chopped at the shins by a pair of leg-sized scissors. Carlo Ancelotti criticised the referee without ever impugning the latter’s partiality, avoiding Arsene Wenger’s mistake. Essentially, the referee bottled it, unable to bring himself to award a penalty in the last minute. And once again, the extra official behind the goal proved that they are just time-servers and they know it – they don’t have the courage to challenge a referee’s decision. It was an interesting experiment by UEFA but it must be concluded that the experiment has failed because these extra officials lack legitimacy, even in their own eyes.
Goal-line technology may have to wait until Sepp Blatter stands down in 2015, but Michel Platini seems only slightly less reactionary and antediluvian. Mohammed Bin Hammam is an unknown quantity, even after securing the World Cup hosting rights for his home country. Referees shouldn’t be replaced, but the ability of computers and television replays to quickly adjudicate controversial incidents is rejected, bafflingly, by FIFA high command. All other high-level sports have introduced a measure of redress to aggrieved competitors – tennis, cricket and rugby among them- but football remains in the dark ages. FIFA may fear the salami-slicing of a referee’s role to virtually nothing but cricket and tennis umpires have felt no diminution in their authority. To keep the speed of the game, video help and/or other technology such as Hawkeye should be applied to goal line decisions, penalty awards and sendings-off of players, with each team getting one appeal per game on whether offside was right or not.
Chelsea-Manchester United seemed quite dull for stretches and I abstained from most of it, tuning in just to catch the only goal of the game – Wayne Rooney’s reward for his endeavour in making the runs but it was the evergreen Ryan Giggs that made it possible – and the final few minutes when Chelsea were unfairly denied and Fernando Torres was rightly booked for diving.
No doubt about the results in the other Champions League matches. Real Madrid will face Barcelona. Real’s match against Tottenham is a dead rubber and after ITV wetted themselves at getting as close to Premier League action as they will for a long time last night, they will have a real hard job of drumming up interest for Real-Spurs. Real have been beaten five-nil this season but that was by Barcelona and Spurs are not ‘More Than a Club’. As for Shakhtar Donetsk, I imagine they could have overturned a two-goal deficit in the Ukraine, say a 3-1 defeat in the Nou Camp, but 5-1 is too much of a mountain to climb. The final quarter-final is a done deal as well, with Schalke 04 scoring five away goals against the European Champions Internazionale, crushing them 5-2. An Italian team keeping an opposing team out is no great trouble but scoring four as well is another matter, given that Serie A is in serious decline and Italian teams do not have that mentality anyway. The Germans will maintain their UEFA co-efficient above the Italians, where the former have four Champions League spots in their domestic league and the Italians only three. Sir Alex Ferguson used to have a dictum that to win the Champions League you needed to beat an Italian team (in meaning, not in the Group Stages but when it counts in the knockout stage). That moment has passed. Since 2005, it has been the case that English teams were the one to beat. Last year, the mantle was in transition. This season - with a guarantee of one La Liga representative in the final - and probably for the foreseeable future, teams from Spain will need to be defeated in order to win the European Cup.