National football team
Nagelsmann’s handball trouble: video referee is mainly to blame
The hand discussion will accompany the DFB team until the end of the international match year. The whistle from Budapest is painfully reminiscent of the European Championship. The national coach doesn’t just blame the referee.
In his great anger over the once again controversial hand penalty decision deep in stoppage time in the 1-1 draw against Hungary, Julian Nagelsmann surprisingly even defended the referee. For the national coach, the main culprit for the controversial decision was not Duje Strukan from Croatia, but the Italian video referee Daniele Chiffi. He even felt sorry for Strukan.
“He is sent out for a situation that, in my opinion, he assessed correctly,” said Nagelsmann about the referee. “It just annoys me that the VAR is there so that you can look at a clearly wrong decision again, then it’s a super cool invention…” said Nagelsmann.
But there was no clear wrong decision. And then the referee “shouldn’t watch TV out there,” said the national coach. “In the end, you do extreme damage to the referee because he doesn’t get a good grade from his observer, he is put under brutal pressure by sending him out, the stadium gets loud, he gets endless pressure. He wouldn’t have blown the whistle in Munich,” analyzed Nagelsmann the exciting situation.
Robin Koch actively turned away from the ball, but still got it on his arm. Of course, memories of Spaniard Marc Cucurella’s clear handball in the European Championship quarter-finals against Spain were immediately present. Germany didn’t get a penalty and lost 2-1 after extra time. UEFA subsequently admitted a mistake by referee Anthony Taylor.
Comparison with Cucurella’s handball
“If you see the game against Spain, where the arm was spread out endlessly and today in Kochi, he pulls his arm back and turns away and then gets a penalty. Nobody can keep up with that,” said Nagelsmann, who has long been calling for a reform of the game Hand evaluation demands that, in his opinion, there should be a penalty if the blocked shot had led to a goal threat. This was also not evident in Koch’s offense.
The second controversial hand penalty decision against the DFB-Elf 2024 did not have the same impact as the one against Spain. And Nagelsmann reminded us that we had also been lucky. From the national coach’s point of view, the hand penalty for Germany in the European Championship round of 16 against Denmark, which Kai Havertz used to take the lead, should not have been whistled.
dpa
