A missed penalty costs Borussia Dortmund important points in the fight for the championship. Former referee Manuel Graefe criticizes Sascha Stegemann’s decision, but also attacks the DFB.
It was supposed to be a cozy dinner for ex-referee Manuel Gräfe and his wife, but then the Bundesliga game on Friday evening got in the way. With the 1-1 draw at VfL Bochum, Borussia Dortmund once again lost important points in the fight for the championship – but after the game everyone was talking about the performance of referee Sascha Stegemann.
What happened? In the 65th minute, Karim Adeyemi was fouled by Danilo Soares in the penalty area, but Stegemann let the ball continue and the VAR did not intervene in the situation either. A situation that made Dortmund foam, Dortmund’s sporting director Sebastian Kehl said it was “cowardly and wrong” not to look at the situation again.
BVB Bochum
Sascha Stegemann: Manuel Gräfe sees the wrong decision
For ex-Bundesliga referee Manuel Gräfe, the event was also an opportunity to speak out. “If my cell phone vibrates constantly over a nice meal with my wife in a restaurant, then I know it’s that time again!” Graefe wrote on Twitter and agreed with Dortmund: “A penalty is crucially missing.”
The 49-year-old also defended Stegemann: “If you want to win a penalty in the last two games, referees become more cautious.” In fact, in the two home games against Union Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt, Adeyemi tried to take penalties with Schwalben – and was cautioned with a yellow card for both actions. Even in the situation with Soares, Adeyemi wanted to take a penalty because the foot was actively going out. “But it’s also one of them, because the player from Bochum acts even more clumsily and actually scores,” explains Graefe. A referee must be prepared, but not biased, criticizes the 49-year-old.
Borussia Dortmund and Stegemann have a history
For Gräfe, however, another difficult component comes into play: the appointment of the referees in the game. “If a referee comes from North Rhine-Westphalia and the VAR from Bavaria, the appointment creates unnecessary pressure. As a referee, you have to look at what is decisive for the game,” explained Gräfe. When scheduling the game, the DFB had put on the duo Stegemann (Niederkassel) and Robert Hartmann (Ingolstadt).
For Gräfe, the starting point is the core problem, because Stegemann made a serious mistake in a game involving Dortmund this season. On Matchday 12, the 38-year-old officiated the game between Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Dortmund and denied the Hessians a crystal-clear penalty. When the score was 1-1, Frankfurt’s Jesper Lindström was knocked over in Dortmund’s penalty area in front of the empty goal. Neither Stegemann nor the VAR intervened. The originator of the potential penalty? Karim Adeyemi. Dortmund ultimately won the game happily 2-1. “Sending the same referee to a BVB game after the Frankfurt vs. Dortmund game is irresponsible,” said Gräfe.
