Thomas Tuchel was furious with a “horrible, horrible” decision to not award Bayern Munich a second penalty in their entertaining 2-2 draw with Arsenal in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie.
The Bavarian giants, almost certain to surrender their Bundesliga crown to Bayer Leverkusen, earned a creditable draw in north London following an indifferent period of form, courtesy of goals from Serge Gnabry and Arsenal‘s arch-nemesis Harry Kane, who scored from the penalty spot.
Things could have been even better for Bayern were it not for a controversial decision from referee Glenn Nyberg, who failed to penalise Gabriel for picking up the ball after goalkeeper David Raya had seemingly taken a goal-kick by passing the ball to him.
Bayern‘s players were told a penalty could not be awarded for a “kid’s mistake” – an explanation that left Tuchel dumbfounded in his post-match interview.
“For me, for all of us, he made a huge mistake not giving the handball penalty,” Tuchel raged. “I know it is a crazy situation but they put the ball down, he whistles, he gives the ball and the defender takes the ball in his hand.
“What makes us really angry is the explanation on the field. He told our players that it is a ‘kid’s mistake’ and he will not give a penalty like this in a quarter-final. This is a horrible, horrible explanation. He is judging handballs. Kid’s mistake, adult’s mistake. Whatever. We feel angry because it is a huge decision against us.”
Nyberg was also in the spotlight late in the game as Bukayo Saka clashed with Manuel Neuer in Bayern’s penalty area. This time the decision went in the German side’s favour, with the England winger, who opened the scoring on the night, deemed to have initiated the contact by dangling his right leg out towards Neuer.
Saka’s Arsenal teammate, Leandro Trossard, said after the game that it “looked like a penalty to me, it looked like clear contact”, while Mikel Arteta remained neutral in his post-match interview, remarking: “I haven’t seen it. The decision is made, we cannot change that. We have to focus on other aspects we can control and that we could’ve done much better tonight.
“I was already looking at the other goal [when Saka first reacted], because he was down in the box and we had 10 men, the game had not finished – I was more worried about that than his reaction!”
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