Hakan Calhan celebrates with his friends the goal he scored in Barcelona
Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez expressed his deep dissatisfaction with the referees’ decisions following his team’s 1-0 defeat to Inter Milan in the third round of the Champions League, Tuesday evening at the Italian San Siro stadium, and said that we faced a “real injustice”.
Barcelona faces the risk of a second exit from the group stage in the Champions League, for the second year in a row, following it finished third in Group C, three points behind Milan and six points behind leaders Bayern Munich.
Hakan Calhanoglu scored the goal of Turkish Inter, with a missile from outside the area, in the first half added time, and Barcelona failed to equalize throughout the second half.
The match witnessed a great deal of controversy due to the decisions of the video assistant referee (the mouse), the most prominent of which was when he canceled a goal scored by Pedri for Barcelona in the 67th minute of the match, to eliminate his team’s hope of a draw, due to the presence of a handball on his colleague Ansu Fati.
After the goal was canceled, Xavi exploded in the referee objecting to the decision, following his dream of a tie was lost, which prompted the referee to warn him.
After the match, Xavi said: “The referee should be here to explain why he made these decisions, if he made mistakes or not. That would make them more human.”
“Today I am really unhappy. I feel there is a real injustice,” he added.
Before the match, there was a lot of pressure on Inter coach Simone Inzaghi, especially following losing two consecutive matches in the Italian League, and his presence in the ninth place in the table following losing four of his eight matches this season.
There was particular concern regarding facing Barcelona, especially star player Robert Lewandowski, who scored nine goals in his past seven games with Barcelona, although he has never scored at the San Siro.
Inzaghi celebrated with his players an important and comfortable victory that brought him close to ascending to the second round and the knockout stage, while Barcelona is close to exiting the first round.
“We have three more finals coming.”
photo released, Getty Images
Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez criticized the referee and demanded to know the reasons for their decisions following the match
The match caught up early once morest the referees, and the first shot was once morest Barcelona in the 24th minute, when the ball touched the hand of defender Eric Garcia in his penalty area, and everyone thought it would be an early penalty once morest the Spanish team, but following returning to the technique of the mouse it was found that there was an infiltration on the Inter Milan player, and he survived A team recovered from an early crisis.
The performance continued evenly until the end of the first half, but in stoppage time, Turkish midfielder Calhan decided to shoot a sudden ball from outside the area from a distance of 25 yards, which slipped over the grass to enter the net from the right side of goalkeeper Ter Stegen, for the Turkish international to score his first goal in the Champions League following five years.
In the second half, Barcelona did not offer much, until Dembele’s powerful shot came in the 60th minute, which hit the left post, and five minutes later was Pedri’s goal, which was canceled.
Barcelona players were unable to organize an effective attack on the Italian goal, although the majority of the time was playing in the Inter stadium, and the good organization recalled the 2010 match that the Italian team won 3-1, and reached the Champions League final.
Xavi knows that the return leg with Inter at Camp Nou, Catalonia, in eight days will likely be decisive for his European hopes this season.
“We have three more finals coming,” he said. “This is a match we lost, but now we have two of our three home matches and they are real finals.
“We have to show more strength. The first half was not good, we have to criticize ourselves – but of course we are offended today.”
