Referee Davide Massa received a mixed rating for the way that he officiated the game between AC Milan and Hellas Verona last night.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (via SempreMilan), Massa was happy to let the game flow early on as seen by the fact that up until the 20th minute he whistled 11 fouls and let a lot go, with no yellow cards being produced.
Then, from that moment on, the game became rougher and more electric and yellow cards started to flow, especially in the second half when Magnani (for a foul on Origi), Hongla (a stomp on Pobega), Faraoni (tactical foul with a man on the run) and Theo Hernandez (same) deserved the cards shown.
Three minutes from the end there was the first check for a possible handball but Mazzoleni (in charge of VAR) rightly determined that neither Tomori, Gabbia nor Thiaw touched the ball with their arm.
Right at the end of the 90 minute Massa relied on another video review as Djuric’s acrobatic effort inside the area struck Pobega but he had his arm close to his body, so again no penalty was the right call.
The paper mention that 18 minutes into the first half Leao went over in the area in a sandwich between Hien and Veloso, but there was no contact worth of a penalty in their eyes.
According to the analysis of Corriere dello Sport (via SempreMilan.it) however, Massa did not convince in his performance, starting from the distribution of cards. After a first part of the game without any being shown, he dished out four in 15 minutes and losing control.
They believe that the penalty not given to Milan for the foul on Leao was in fact a good case for a spot kick as Hien used arguably a bit too much force, but whether it was ‘clear and obvious’ is a separate debate.
So he dished out deserved cards and let the game flow plus VAR got it right in all potential penalty calls but still got mixed reviews 😂😂😂 welcome to Serie A
I thought the referee did well. He still much better compare to the referee who gave big advantage for Chelsea.
The only thing I criticize the ref for is that he didn’t intervene with Verona’s time wasting. 15min to go and it took then over 1 minute to start the game after receiving a free kick. And the player didn’t even need treatment. I wonder how many minutes was actually played yesterday as after every whistle it took ages to get the game on again.
*ti took them over 1 minute