JUlian Nagelsmann had already shaken his head before referee Tobias Stieler arrived in front of the screen. The FC Bayern Munich coach watched the two disputed scenes on the tablet in the coach’s bench and only his point of view was confirmed anyway.
“I had good vision both times, so it was relatively easy for me to see that both were penalties,” said Nagelsmann after Bayern’s 2-1 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga on Sunday: “The first time I saw myself immediately thought that Adli was hit on the heel. The second time I knew it was definitely not a swallow.”
In both cases, Stieler initially gave Leverkusen’s Amine Adli a yellow card. Both times he took them back, apologized and awarded penalties that enabled Exequiel Palacios to secure Leverkusen’s 2-1 win. The referee was relieved afterwards. “The VAR always gets a lot of criticism, but that was very good. He was my lifesaver, so to speak – and also for the lifesaver game,” he said: “Otherwise two wrong decisions would have been made. So today I take it with humor.”
“The football world can be satisfied”
“My soul is crying a bit,” said the referee after a true Bundesliga curiosity, “but the football world can be satisfied.” Stieler knew who to turn to after the final whistle: his colleague Sören Storks. “It was a prime example of the perfect collaboration with the video assistant,” he said at DAZN. “Twice on the field next to it, twice many thanks to the Kölner Keller for the great support. In the end both teams were happy because the right decision was made.”
Adli, who promised Stieler his jersey, saw it the same way. “Today I’m glad that VAR intervened,” said the Frenchman. During the decision-making process, he was “naturally tense and a little nervous”: “But now we’re just happy.” After the first decision, Adli pointed to his worn-out shoe and then threw it so vehemently on the lawn that he was lucky had not prematurely see yellow-red.
“I’ve been in football for a long time, but it rarely happens that you take your shoe off yourself,” said Leverkusen’s sporting director Simon Rolfes with a laugh. At the second yellow card, Adli just laughed and indicated to Stieler that he would have to correct himself again when he looked at it. In the end, however, the Leverkusen team had long been reconciled with the referee in their triumphal frenzy. “He doesn’t have to apologize,” said captain and goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky: “I have to commend him. He corrected himself twice, which shows greatness.”
And Bayern did not quarrel about the unfortunate circumstances of the event. “If it’s checked via the video evidence, I think it will have been clear twice,” said goalscorer Joshua Kimmich. And Nagelsmann also forgivingly drew a line under the curious topic. “I’m generally a friend of the VAR,” said the coach: “Today there were two penalties, so everything was in the spirit of justice. So it was bitter, but fair.”
The Bayern coach even suffered with Stieler. “It also took the pressure off the referee,” he said: “Imagine if he had let the two yellow cards stand, we might have won 1-0 and wouldn’t have gotten two clear penalties against us.” Then they complained certainly not only the Leverkusen, but also the Dortmund. In the event of a Bayern victory, they would have gone into second place at the summit on April 1, but now they are leading the table.
Former referee Manuel Graefe criticized his former colleague Stieler and also attacked the German Football Association. With the hashtag for the game (#B04FCB), the 49-year-old Gräfe denounced that there was a “misdevelopment of the last decade” in terms of personnel. This is made clear by the fact that “such” referees are sponsored by the DFB “up to the highest group of UEFA”, “but the performance never justified it,” Graefe tweeted.
The 41-year-old Stieler has been a FIFA referee since 2014 and thus represents the DFB in international games. Gräfe accuses the DFB of age discrimination after the end of his own Bundesliga career and has therefore sued the association.