Hellas Verona coach Alberto Bertolini believes his side were hard done by during their defeat to AC Milan in the incident leading to the penalty.
Milan could hardly have asked for a better game to round off 2025 as they won 3-0 in front of a sold out San Siro to put themselves back in top spot for now, while waiting to see how Inter get on against Atalanta later in the day.
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Christian Pulisic was on hand to fire in from a corner to give Milan the lead just before the break. Then, Christopher Nkunku got his first and second Serie A goals in quick succession in the second half to wrap up three points, with the added bonus of a clean sheet too.
Paolo Zanetti’s assistant was the one in the dugout this afternoon as the head coach served a touchline ban. He did the media duties after the game too, and his comments to DAZN were relayed by MilanNews.
How do you assess that game?
“We played the game we had prepared for: a compact first half where Milan had few chances. To get points at San Siro, you need perfection. Consider the goal at the end of the first half from a corner, the penalty at the start of the second half… The game was directed and it was much more complicated.”
Why did you make certain changes? And what did you feel about the penalty?
“We needed a bit of fresh energy because it didn’t seem like we were being that effective. As for the penalty, while I respect the referee’s decisions, there are certainly plenty of incidents like this, these half-holds.
“It seemed a bit like a soft penalty to me. It obviously had an impact, it shaped the game. We had those 10 minutes where we were a bit mentally unhinged. We respect that, but it wasn’t a clear penalty incident. At least it felt that way to us.”
The coach is right with his argument. He didn’t argue it’s not a penalty but clear penalty. My response to him should the referee wait until he brakes his neck before giving the penalty?
Isn’t it an automatic VAR review when a penalty is called? It appears that nothing was said to the referee from the replay booth, so the ref wasn’t wrong.
VAR can/should only cancel the penalty if the call was clearly incorrect.
I was VERY unhappy about the refereeing too! In fact, I was furious. 90% of the calls were absolutely ridiculous! RLC’s & Saelemaekers’ “shoulder to shoulder” challenges were whistled as fouls and Nelson basically run over Pulisic from behind while giving a knock on his head and nothing. RLC lies down in pain for 1 minute but the play goes on while a Verona player gets a similar knock and the referee pauses the game (no head injury).
It was a Christmas miracle that that fcked up ref even gave that obvious penalty.