A whistle causes trouble in Madrid
Bayern stars and Tuchel rage against referees
May 9, 2024, 12:17 a.m
In the final minutes, FC Bayern slipped away from the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid. First Manuel Neuer makes a mistake, then the Munich team’s supposed equalizer is whistled off. Defender Matthijs de Ligt, coach Thomas Tuchel and TV expert Michael Ballack can hardly believe it.
Matthijs de Ligt was angry. Referee Szymon Marciniak’s hasty offside whistle in the middle of Bayern’s final offensive left the Dutchman stunned at the Estadio Bernabeu. “I find the scene unbelievable. I can’t understand it, you have to play through it,” said de Ligt on DAZN. Marciniak apologized, the defender reported, adding: “I don’t want to say that Madrid are always lucky, but that makes the difference today.”
What happened? Shortly before the end of the 15-minute stoppage time, the otherwise confident Marciniak had a Bayern attack prematurely whistled off for offside; the following goal from de Ligt for the supposed equalizer in the Champions League semi-final at Real Madrid did not count. The score remained 1:2 (0:0). The dream of the German final at Wembley was shattered.
DAZN expert Michael Ballack was initially speechless, and when the former Bayern professional found it again, he targeted the referee team with clear words. “It’s not undeserved, but it’s highly controversial,” said Ballack: “It’s a blatantly wrong decision. The linesman makes the first mistake. Normally he has to wait. I don’t know why the flag comes so early here.”
Substitute Thomas Müller, who headed the ball to de Ligt, spoke of an “absolutely wild” scene. And goalkeeper Manuel Neuer said: “I think he knows that in the end it was a mistake and that the decision shouldn’t be made too early.”
Manuel Neuer finds the equalizer “brutal”
After the final whistle, Thomas Tuchel also struggled with the unfortunate exit from the Champions League. After the bitter double strike by Joselu (88th and 90th + 2) in the final phase and the hasty and incorrect offside whistle from referee Szymon Marciniak (“Absolute disaster”), Tuchel tried to organize his thoughts in the DAZN interview. “It was extremely unfortunate, it all came together in the last three minutes. You have to deal with that.”
The 50-year-old, who now only has the two final Bundesliga games left in FC Bayern’s first titleless season since 2011/12, summed up: “The boys are very disappointed. We were almost through, it was a full fight. Nothing I say can alleviate that in any way. Everyone is also sour, very bitter.”
Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who had played outstandingly for almost 90 minutes and kept Bayern in the game against the record winners, was completely dejected. He couldn’t hold on to a shot from Vinicius Junior and Joselu canceled out Alphonso Davies’ lead. Tuchel saw this as a mistake “that won’t happen to Manuel Neuer in 100 years.”
And the national goalkeeper also stated: “That’s extremely bitter for me, I expected the ball differently, more towards the chest, it then went a little higher. I didn’t expect that there was such a minimal mole in the space “, said Neuer and admitted: “This 1-1 is brutal.” The knockout followed just four minutes later