Red card.. for all of those criticising brave ref Oliver
MICHAEL OLIVER will go down among Juventus supporters as the referee who shot Bambi.
But when you blow away all the froth and bluster around his award of a last-gasp penalty to Real Madrid, converted by Cristiano Ronaldo, and his decision to send off Juve goalkeeping legend Gianluigi Buffon, it was a fantastic call.
I’ve seen Oliver hammered on social media, I’ve heard the sneers that it was a “soft” penalty, and I read Buffon’s comments about the referee having a dustbin for a heart.
Nonsense – Oliver made a courageous decision in the dying seconds of a massive Champions League quarter-final and he got it spot-on.
From every angle, Medhi Benatia’s clumsy challenge on Lucas Vazquez was a foul. It was a penalty.
Yes, it trashed the script of a fairytale fightback by Juventus, who were fantastic in wiping out their 3-0 deficit from the first leg on the night.
But it is not the referee’s job to deliver happy endings to order in the Champions League. Oliver’s job was to apply the Laws of football honestly and correctly, and he passed that test with flying colours.
People say that his decision to send off Buffon was unnecessary, that he should have taken into account all the emotions of a highlycharged incident.
I understand the sentiment – but you can’t rewrite the rulebook just to accommodate the feelings of a legend in the last throes of his career at the highest level.
Buffon is an all-time great. An absolute giant of the game. But there is not a separate set of rules which apply only to him.
If that had been a Premier League game, and a keeper was subjecting the ref to sustained verbal abuse, you would expect him to be sent off.
Buffon’s anger would have been better directed at the defenders who allowed Vazquez to get into a position where he was favourite to score.
In the past I have not hesitated to dish out stick to referees in this column when they get it wrong. It is only fair that we applaud them when they make courageous decisions which are proved correct.
Oliver’s critics sneer that his big call demonstrates why there will be no English referees at the World Cup this summer.
Really? The decision to disallow Leroy Sane’s goal the previous night, which would have put Manchester City 2-0 up against Liverpool, was much worse. But Antonio Mateu Lahoz, the Spanish official who got it badly wrong, will be on duty in Russia.
Is the standard of refereeing in England really so poor that the Premier League does not deserve to be represented in Russia? Come off it – I often hear foreign managers say how much they admire the standard of officials over here.
I just hope that the officials who take charge of huge games in Russia will have the courage to apply the laws consistently.
The last thing England fans want is to be knocked out of the World Cup by another Hand of God incident because the referee missed a blatant example of flouting the rules.
You don’t hear much about the Tunisian referee who allowed Diego Maradona’s notorious goal to stand in 1986, do you?
But I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of Michael Oliver. On the evidence of Wednesday night in Madrid, he’ll do for me.