Sport Darmstadts Wut
“I would like to meet the person who invented this rule, ideally today.”
Status: 24.02.2024 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Darmstadt’s winning goal in added time in Bremen was subsequently disallowed due to a handball. Guest coach Torsten Lieberknecht is angry – and receives support from Dietmar Hamann.
For Torsten Lieberknecht, the game rarely started strangely. Because he had to serve a yellow card suspension, he could not support his team from the sidelines as usual, but could only keep his fingers crossed high up in the stands of Bremen’s Weser Stadium. And anyone who only saw the simple final result on the scoreboard at the end would have thought they were meeting a satisfied coach from SV Darmstadt 98. 1:1 in Bremen, a sign of life in the relegation battle by the struggling bottom of the table.
But because after the goals from guest defender Christoph Zimmermann (8th) in his own goal and Julian Justvan (33rd) to make it 1-1 in stoppage time, the promoted team’s supposed 2-1 lead by Tim Skarke (90th + 5th) was taken back by referee Florian Badstübner because of a handball with a raised arm by the acclaimed goalscorer, the spectators saw a very angry coach walking from the stands onto the pitch. The following question-and-answer game took place on the Sky microphone.
Sky-Reporter: “Mr Lieberknecht, you were very emotional after the final whistle, why exactly?”
Lieberknecht: “Ask another question, come on!”
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Sky-Reporter: Why?
Lieberknecht: “You know why. You don’t have to ask me why I was emotional.”
Sky-Reporter: “But you know the rule, whether intentional or not, that it doesn’t matter before a goal is scored, right?”
Lieberknecht: “I’m aware of it, but it’s still a huge scandal.”
Sky-Reporter: „But it’s part of the rules.”
Lieberknecht: “I would like to meet the person who invented this rule, ideally today. If this rule exists, it should never apply. Would there be a penalty for that? Probably not. Because the hand is there. That’s where you turn the wheel emotionally.”
Darmstadt’s coach Torsten Lieberknecht
Source: dpa/Uwe Anspach
In the most recent games, Lieberknecht continued quite calmly, his team had three goals denied. “They just hurt and would have brought points. So we could have taken a step. Nevertheless, I think this is still a brutal sign of life from us. Because I don’t know what more impacts this team has to overcome to finally be rewarded. We will carry on and we will hope that we have a bit of luck on our side.”
Lieberknecht received support for his view of things from Dietmar Hamann after the final whistle. In his analysis of the 1-1 draw by the bottom team in Bremen and the questionable handball rule, the Sky expert said: “It is against all sporting spirit that such a rule was even made again. We have to get people in there who have played the game. It’s not acceptable for something like that to be punished.”
