I might be wrong, but was last night the first time Unai has ever complained about a decision made in a match? I like that he said something, as it was clearly a bottle-job, but interesting that it was THIS decision that made him vocal, when he's been so calm about decisions going the wrong way for us previously?
Is this a sign of pressure on him personally, or is this simply him knowing how European competitions/organisations work, and he thinks complaining about such a high-profile error might give us a fraction more benefit of the doubt if something contentious happens in the second leg?
Either way, I thought it was an interesting deviation from the norm for him!
My interpretation of his comments was that having couched it in terms of player safety, he was speaking out to protect his players. That in turn suggests there are some very pissed off fellas in our dressing room (as Ollie demonstrated by giving out a few sneaky kicks to Anderson) who needed to hear themselves stood up for by the boss.
Interesting that less than a month ago, Barcelona officially called for an UEFA investigation against the Portuguese VAR official Tiago Martins and demanded copies of all the communication, videos, etc.
"Barcelona understands that this decision, together with the serious lack of VAR intervention, represents a major error. Therefore, the club has requested the opening of an investigation, access to refereeing communications and, where applicable, official recognition of errors and adoption of relevant measures."
He's not very popular as a referee with Benficistas either, so he's not all bad. But seriously, credit to Unai for calling out the utter stupidity of the decision. Here the TV commentators squealed at the challenge as did the Chinese commentators (don't ask).
