Champions League fury of FC Bayern
Tuchel goes after the referee – “It’s an absolute disaster”
As of: 11:50 a.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes
“Apologizing doesn’t help” – Tuchel sharply criticizes the referee
After the dramatic semi-final defeat against Real Madrid, Thomas Tuchel’s frustration was unleashed on the referees. “A semi-final is not the time for excuses,” raged the Bayern coach at the press conference.
An offside whistle before the supposed 2-2 in stoppage time against Real Madrid angered Bayern. Coach Thomas Tuchel talks himself into a rage that night. Sports director Max Eberl is also outraged – and harshly criticizes the referee team.
Thomas Tuchel was stunned. After dramatically missing the Champions League final, the visibly upset Bayern coach visibly found it difficult to control his anger at the refereeing team around Szymon Marciniak. The 43-year-old Pole apologized after FC Bayern’s 1-2 defeat in the semi-final second leg at Real Madrid on Wednesday evening for being offside when Matthijs de Ligt equalized 2-2 in the 13th minute of injury time whistled too early. The scene could not be verified using video evidence.
“Of course we accept the apology as sportsmen. But it’s a semi-final, it’s not the time for excuses, honestly not,” said Tuchel, literally talking himself into a rage in the press conference. “This is not the time for such blatant video violations. Everyone has to reach the limit, everyone has to suffer, everyone has to play without mistakes. The referees at this level have to do that too. It just doesn’t help if you say sorry afterwards. That’s why you’re on the field, that’s why you’re the best there is out there. And if you can’t deliver that, it doesn’t help,” complained Tuchel.
Marciniak is considered one of the world’s best referees. He officiated the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France and the 2023 Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter Milan. He was also a good game leader for a long time on Wednesday. Tuchel criticized the referee and linesman. “The scene at the end is the cherry on the cake. This is an absolute disaster! When Real scores their second goal, the game ends. The referee does not have to blow the whistle. This is a violation of the rules.”
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Tuchel went for it again on the PK. “It is against all the rules of modern football. Raising the flag in such a situation where you can never, never, never be sure that it is offside is a tough decision,” said the Bayern coach. A 2-2 equalizer would have meant extra time after the 2-2 draw in the first leg. “We’re just mad, we left everything out there. It was a real fight, we put the punch in and are almost over the finish line,” said Tuchel in view of a 1-0 win by Alphonso Davies and two late goals conceded by Real striker Joselu.
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“You can apologize. It’s also good and smart that he’s doing it,” said Bayern captain Manuel Neuer and speculated: “He probably got infected in the situation that he was a referee at the Bernabéu. That shouldn’t happen at this level. You have to make decisions the way you’ve been trained to do if you don’t immediately recognize whether it was offside. Blowing the whistle straight away wasn’t the right thing to do.”
Eberl rages against Marciniak
Bayern’s sports director Max Eberl was also stunned. “It can be explained in no time.” Such scenes would otherwise never be interrupted so that they can be checked later using VAR. “Logically, that was a mistake,” criticized Eberl and suspected malicious intent to BILD. “Highly strange and dubious. The referee blew his whistle before de Ligt shot, so VAR can no longer intervene. The referee said it was his mistake. We can’t buy shit from that. We were all for a German final. Everyone except the Polish referees.”
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The scorer of the possible equalizer, Matthijs de Ligt, no longer understood the world after Marciniak’s premature whistle: “I think that’s incredible. We make the rules that you have to keep playing even if it’s offside. I do not understand that. He apologized, but that doesn’t help us. That is the difference. I don’t want to say that Real Madrid always have the referee with them, but that makes the difference today.”
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Former Bundesliga referee Thorsten Kinhöfer described the situation to BILD as follows: “An inexcusable mistake in a Champions League semi-final. Not just from the referee, but especially from the assistant. He is actually instructed to wait and see. He had to wait.” His former colleague Manuel Gräfe, ZDF referee expert, agreed with him: “Blatant stubbornness from the referee team and two mistakes: First, the assistant should have waited with the flag. And even when the flag comes, the referee blows the whistle.”
