Referees, from Turin-Monza to Atalanta-Juve on a dark Sunday

It was not a good Sunday for the referees. Young and old, semi-novice or expert, they have made mistakes that are difficult to understand and accept. From Turin to Bergamo, they were lacking in many respects: lucidity, technical analysis skills, coordination with the reference Var, even common sense. Yes, common sense: it is an unwritten but fundamental rule; it should accompany the race directors instead it is often set aside, forgotten, cancelled. So much so that sometimes the referees’ interventions seem almost provocative. Nothing could be more wrong, because in this way tempers are also exacerbated.

Let’s take Turin-Monza. Three minutes from the end, there’s a solar penalty for the grenade: Ricci is launched alone towards Di Gregorio’s goal, Rovella is late and knocks him out. The referee is young, Zufferli: in his third match in Serie A (even on his debut he managed the Brianza side, on that occasion victorious in Bologna), he was designated for a match that evidently was not judged complicated or first-rate. Yet it should be borne in mind that, at this stage of the championship, all matches count for a lot, not just those that assign places for qualification in the Champions League. Even the other placements have an enormous weight for those chasing them: both the matches involving the teams fighting behind the first (which could deliver a place in Europe) and those concerning the tussle for salvation are worth a lot.

Let’s go back to Rovella’s foul on Ricci. Zufferli sees, but misjudges: with a blatant gesture he signals that nothing has happened, that the game must continue.His mistake is serious, that of Abbattista – the man at the Var – is perhaps even more so: looks and looks at the images again, induces the referee to stop the bout for a long time waiting for his review, then announces that the decision was right and there was no irregular intervention. Another completely wrong assessment, with the aggravating circumstance that the Var had the opportunity to observe the action in slow motion several times. And he didn’t even take into account the unwritten rule we were talking about: common sense. How can you think that Ricci, thrown alone towards the opposing goalkeeper, throws himself on the ground instead of continuing his action and reaching the conclusion? It’s a decision that weighs on the result and on the standings, nor should we underestimate that a couple of minutes earlier another very dubious intervention in the Monza area had been judged regular, this time by Marlon against Karamoh.

A case that was not decisive for the outcome of the meeting, but decidedly thorny, occurred in Bergamo. Vlahovic in the final minutes of Atalanta-Juve was the victim of racist chants by the Bergamo fans, a bit like what happened to Lukaku in the Italian Cup at the Stadium. The referee Doveri rightly asked that the audience be warned: if those words weren’t finished, he would have interrupted the match. But it all started again when Dusan scored the 2-0. At that point the center forward blatantly invited the ultras to continue with those chants, a reaction full of anger and also understandable, but Doveri warned him. Why? Provocative rejoicing, motivation. The same that had been attributed to Lukaku, who however had the disqualification triggered due to that yellow card (he was warned) cancelled. But where were Doveri when all that pandemonium broke out around Romelu? Did he forget it or did he pretend it was never there? He certainly lacked common sense (common sense again…) and sensitivity. A bit like Gasperini, who mixed rudeness with racism, equating “piece of m…” with “gypsy of m…”. It’s not exactly like that: rudeness is bad, but racism is another matter.