Motta believes Spezia ‘deserved’ win vs. Milan and plays down refereeing error: “It has happened to everyone”

By Oliver Fisher -

Spezia boss Thiago Motta believes that his side were deserved winners against AC Milan at San Siro this evening despite the late refereeing controversy.

Milan head coach Stefano Pioli couldn’t hide his anger as his side fell victim to a dreadful officiating display and lost to Spezia in the final seconds at San Siro on Monday evening. A last minute goal from Emmanuel Gyasi got the away side the win, who completed a second half comeback for the Ligurian side after Kevin Agudelo had cancelled out Rafael Leao’s opener.

The big moment came in added time at the end of the second half when – with the score at 1-1 – Junior Messias thumped the ball into the top corner only to find out the referee blew less than a second before for a foul on Ante Rebic, therefore not playing an obvious advantage.

Motta spoke to the reporters who gathered in the press room for his post-game conference and he had some pretty interesting interpretations of how the game went, including that bad refereeing errors are just part and parcel of the game.

“I think that all the victories we have done so far are good victories. The players are working hard. Tonight we had a good performance and a deserved positive result. Now let’s enjoy this victory for one day, then from the day after tomorrow we will already think about the next one,” he said (via MilanNews).

“I am fortunate to have a fantastic group, even in the difficult moments that there will be in the future. We offer the players some ideas, but then they are the protagonists who go out on the pitch and do what they did tonight, defending and attacking together, and we got the prize at the end of a team that didn’t give up.”

What did returning to San Siro mean for you?

“Playing at San Siro is always a fortune. Today we are lucky like Spezia to participate in a unique moment at San Siro… it’s a pity that we didn’t have it full. We know the difficulties we have, but I’m really happy with the group.”

What do you think about Serra’s error?

“It has happened to everyone to receive or lose something, this is football. The most important thing, as far as we are concerned, is to be aware of the good match we had against Milan: we played until the end.”


RATINGS: AC Milan 1-2 Spezia – Kalulu mistakes costly in tough defeat

Tags AC Milan Thiago Motta

5 Comments

  1. I honestly don’t think that Spezia played that well, after the minute 70. They just try to make faults against Milan players and stop the match every 5 minutes or less. It was just more about luck that Milan players were psychologically affected by that last call by the referee. That’s why Spezia won. They played better the first 20 of the minutes of the second half. Also when the referee is on your side, of course, a team will perform better because they can play dirtier without nobody who sanctions them

  2. Motta was watching another game, for sure Spezia doesn’t deserve to win, because they were playing very physically and the referee didn’t give enough yellow cards which encourage players to make more fouls.
    There is 2 players from Spezia deserve second yellow card but referee have another idea.
    For the early blew, referee was in very good position to see where is the ball is going but just he decide to not play the advantage🤔

  3. Well what do you expect him to say? They go lucky and that ref handed them a victory. That his relegation fodder of a team should have seen at least one or two players sent off before the end and that if they replayed this game million times they would have lost it every single time.

    Of course he’s gonna say they deserve it, he is not an idiot, he knows they don’t, not really. But it is his team so he has to say it.

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