It was the excitement on the 12th Bundesliga match day: BVB professional Karim Adeyemi pushed Jesper Lindström from Eintracht Frankfurt to the ground in the penalty area. Neither referee Sascha Stegemann nor VAR intervened. Stefan Effenberg finds clear words for the penalty that was not given.
“That was the most blatant foul that there is in football,” Effenberg reacted in his “sports1“-Column with great incomprehension on the missed penalty for Eintracht Frankfurt in the game against BVB.
The fact that referee Sascha Stegemann did not get any help from VAR in said scene was “an absolute catastrophe,” said the former international, who asked himself the question after this failure: “What will happen to Robert Kampka next week?”
Eintracht Frankfurt disadvantaged?
Kampka was on duty as a VAR assistant on Saturday. Although not all TV images were available to the 40-year-old in the scene in question, Effenberg does not want to accept that as an excuse.
“If you don’t recognize that, no matter what TV pictures you have available, then I’m sorry. Then you don’t have the quality for the Bundesliga either,” rumbled the ex-Bundesliga professional.
“Seven-year-old” would have given a penalty against BVB
When Adeyemi fouled Lindström, “a seven-year-old could have been put there and decided,” “Effe” shot sharply at Kampka: “If I ask the seven-year-old: ‘What is he doing in the yellow jersey?’ Then of course he replies: ‘He pushes him.'”
Meanwhile, Effenberg did not want his criticism to be understood as a general settlement with the VAR. To say that the video evidence had to be “thumped into the bin” was “total nonsense,” wrote the former international.
The VAR instrument is good, “because it makes football fairer. But”, the “Tiger” restricted at the same time: “You just have to use it with the highest quality”.