Atletico Madrid head coach Diego Simeone has insisted that Julian Alvarez’s penalty against Real Madrid should not have been disallowed.
Alvarez took Atletico’s second penalty in a dramatic shootout after his team defeated Madrid 1-0 in the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie, making the scores 2-2 on aggregate.
The Argentina international slipped while taking his kick but the ball still went high into the back of the net.
Before Madrid’s Federico Valverde could take the next penalty, though, a VAR check took place. Polish video assistant referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski ruled that Alvarez’s standing foot had touched the ball before his shot, which led to the penalty going down as a miss.
That gave Madrid the advantage and they made it count to win the shootout 4-2.
In his post-match press conference Simeone questioned the decision to disallow the goal.
“I’ve just seen the images, the referee says Julian touches the ball with his supporting leg, but the ball doesn’t move.
“That’s debatable, whether it was a goal or not. But I’m proud of my players, I’m honestly happy, because we competed in an exemplary way.”
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He continued: “When Julian kicks [the penalty], the ball doesn’t even move a bit. I imagine that they called the VAR and saw that he touched it. I want to believe that they’ll have seen that he touched it.”
Simeone then told journalists who were in the room: “Raise your hand, anyone who saw Julian touch it twice. Who is going to raise their hand? Nobody has raised their hand.”
Madrid continued their dominance of Atletico as they have now won all six meetings against their rivals in the knockout rounds of the Champions League including two in the final in 2014 and 2016.
They will now meet Arsenal – who eliminated PSV – in the quarter-finals.
