Buffon blasts referee Oliver after red card fury

MADRID: Gianluigi Buffon’s Champions League quest ended with a display of wildeyed fury, a red card and bitter recriminations after seeing his Juventus side knocked out in the quarterfinals by Real Madrid on Wednesday.

Italy’s great goalkeeper was left incandescent by referee Michael Oliver’s decision to award Real a debatable but decisive stoppage-time penalty.

In the saddest, ugliest moment of the 40-year-old’s peerless career, he rounded on the English official, jostling him and screaming in his face until an alarmed Oliver, also being hounded by other Juve players, showed him a red card.

The episode left Buffon criticising Oliver bitterly afterwards, saying that he had been out of his depth, should have been in the stands eating crisps and must have had a garbage bin for a heart.

“It was a 10th of a penalty... a human being cannot destroy dreams like that at the end of an extraordinary comeback on a dubious situation,” he told Mediaset Premium. “Clearly you cannot have a heart in your chest, but a garbage bin.”

“You cannot ruin the dreams of a team. I could’ve told the referee anything at that moment, but he had to understand the degree of the disaster he was creating.

In injury time, with extratime just 30 seconds away, Lucas Vazquez tumbled under the challenge of Mehdi Benatia and it looked a soft award of a penalty. Buffon had to be restrained by his team mates before reluctantly leaving the pitch.