AC Milan came away with all three points from their clash against Udinese on Saturday evening, coming back from 2-1 behind to win 3-2. When the score was still 0-0, though, there was a controversial penalty decision involving Christian Pulisic.
In the 27th minute, Pulisic received the ball in the box and although his first touch wasn’t brilliant, he then managed to head it. The Udinese striker Lorenzo Lucca tried to reach the ball as well but as Pulisic got touch, the Italian ended up taking out the American with his elbow.
Milan imminently made their thoughts known and it almost looked like Pulisic had been knocked out for a second. However, he got to his feet rather quickly and the referee waved play on. The former referee Luca Marelli, speaking on live DAZN (via MilanNews), shared his thoughts on the decision.
“There was a clash, Lucca arrived very late compared to Pulisic. Very risky, but it’s one of those incidents that are evaluated on the pitch [by the referee] and rightly so,” he stated.
Milan took the lead just four minutes later through Ruben Lofus-Cheek. In the grand scheme of things, therefore, the decision didn’t matter that much. Had Fabio Maresca pointed to the spot, though, VAR most likely wouldn’t have intervened.
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