Lazio-Milan and Turin-Fiorentina, referees in disarray

Referees who lose their clarity, make matches nervous, ruin them. They should be guided by regulation and common sense: they follow neither one nor the other. They are the mirror of a system that doesn’t work, that needs to be changed. They were two dark, very dark evenings for the team led by Rocchi. First Lazio-Milan, then Turin-Fiorentina: a double disaster. The designer tries to get by, to improve the young people he has at his disposal, but his efforts are in vain: his mission is failing, the human material he finds himself working with is too modest and he is unable to have as much impact as he does. should.

of beauty and hustlers

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Di Bello and Marchetti did a lot of things, it’s no surprise that at the end of the matches in Rome and Turin the spirits on the pitch were high. At stake are ranking positions, qualification for European cups, sporting prestige and economic income. It is impossible to imagine that certain errors have no consequences and are accepted calmly, even more so in today’s football, all VAR and TV, images and slow motion. How can we think that those mistakes will slide on the protagonists, who can verify the extent of the injustices suffered a few moments after they happened, simply by looking at a smartphone or tablet on the bench? And the same goes for the fans: they too have technology at their disposal, they too in the stands observe, see, understand. Right away. The referee makes a huge mistake; the VAR supports him, does not correct him despite having the privilege of being able to review the episode at reduced speed and from multiple angles; everyone knows immediately that they were both wrong.

naked kings

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The kings are naked. The kings of oversights. We reported in yesterday’s Gazzetta about the mistakes made by Di Bello and his assistants – including Var and the fourth official. In today’s talk we talk about Marchetti’s mistakes. Ricci’s expulsion was incredible, the decision that changed the balance of a match that Torino was playing better than Fiorentina. Booked for a wide elbow, the Granata midfielder received another yellow card for protests a few seconds later. And that is for having said – as the TV sidelines, located a few meters from the episode, said – simply this: “But how can you not warn him?”. He was referring to Arthur, who had just tackled him and against whom Marchetti seemed not to want to take disciplinary decisions (then he did so, perhaps realizing after the time had expired that he could not chase a player from the field who had suffered a blatant foul and make it pass completely scot-free to whoever committed that intervention). A senseless expulsion, a decision without common sense, which follows the goal disallowed by Zapata for a push like many others. Another match that changed not due to the prowess of a champion, but due to a wrong decision by the referee. How sad.

crisis of a system

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The crisis of the referee class is the crisis of a system. Italian football must change in a profound, definitive way: what is happening takes away credibility, spectacle, trust and appeal. At stake is not and cannot be the reduction of Serie A from twenty to eighteen teams: these are almost insignificant, indeed harmful, details. We need more, much more. In recent weeks the Serie A League has talked about splitting from the Football Federation: it wants to go on its own to improve the product to offer to fans and the media, including international ones. The model is the Premier League, which since it ran on its own, as an independent entity, has grown dramatically: it was decidedly behind us, less important and less rich, and now it has jumped in front of us and pulled us away, as if it were Pogacar of Strade Bianche. How much can Italian football grow if it follows the same path? How many limits, how many defects can be overcome by changing mentality and organization, and at the same time increasing the freedom of choice of Serie A clubs, those that produce the wealth on which not only football, but a large part of Italian sport lives? The clubs, united, are tracing a path at the end of which a new and different football appears. Improve? Better, yes: it’s hard to imagine a worse one.