Interisti furious over penalty against Liverpool, ex-Nerazzurri rages

On Tuesday night Inter Milan came out of the Champions League match against Liverpool: Cristian Chivu’s team was beaten 1-0. Deciding the challenge was a penalty converted by Dominik Szoboszlai a few minutes before the triple whistle, but the episode caused an avalanche of controversy. The match director decided to award the penalty for a holding by Alessandro Bastoni on Florian Wirtz but, according to many, the contact was too light to justify the referee&#8217s decision to award the penalty kick in favor of the English champions. From the studios of Sky Goran Pandev threw gasoline on the fire.

Ernesto Villa

“Now it will not be easy to qualify for the round of 16 – analyzed the’former Macedonian center forward -. They come Arsenal and Dortmund after two defeats in a row that do not hurt, but hurt badly. Inter didn’t deserve to lose to Liverpool, the Nerazzurri&#8217s game in my opinion was good and the most fair result was a draw. A very similar situation to what we saw in Madrid against Simeone&#8217s Atletico, so it is very heavy. The match was decided by the referee and Inter did not deserve to lose, this is my opinion”. Goran Pandev&#8217s words made the rounds on the web and many Inter players applauded the analysis of the former Nerazzurri striker.

In the post-match, Cristian Chivu analyzed the penalty issue this way: “I speak little about it, the referee interpreted well the dynamics of the match and the action, Var should understand the dynamics. We also have to fight against injustice and episodes. In my opinion, a draw was fair the way it was set up. In the beginning we suffered their pressure but then afterwards we found the key. Then an episode came at the end of the game, already the second one in the Champions League, and unfortunately we failed to score. We had courage to try all the way, we had to be more polished going forward but it was a game conditioned by those initial changes”.

The Nerazzurri helmsman in the last part refers to Hakan Calhanoglu and Francesco Acerbi. The Turkish midfielder had to leave the field after just over 10 minutes due to a muscle problem and Piotr Zielinski entered in his place, at 31′ Chivu was forced to replace Francesco Acerbi by inserting Yann Bisseck. For the experienced defender, too, it was a muscle problem. After the defeat against Liverpool, Inter now sits in fifth place in the overall Champions League standings with 12 points earned in the first 6 days, the result of 4 wins (Ajax, Slavia Prague, Union Saint-Gilloise and Kairat) and 2 defeats (Atletico Madrid and Liverpool).