Marciniak, who is the referee of Barcelona-Inter

The amount of fierce controversy that followed the first leg required a designation of the most authoritative. Roberto Rosetti was fully aware of this and for this reason he turned to one of the most reliable profiles for Barcelona-Inter. The Camp Nou match will be directed by the Polish Szymon Marciniak, the assistants will be Sokolnicki and Listkiewicz, the fourth Musial man while at the Var there will be Kwiatkowski and the English Attwell. Marciniak, together with the Slovenian Vincic who had refereed at San Siro, was the most employed in the last edition of the Champions League, with eight directions. Including Inter, in the first leg of the round of 16 against Liverpool, with the Nerazzurri defeated 0-2 but without any shadow on the referees’ decisions.

This year he was chosen for Atletico Madrid-Porto, a very complicated challenge in which he came out well. The controversial period, in short, is now behind us. The exclusion from the European Championships in 2021 marked a new beginning for Marciniak (41 years old and elite since 2015), who did not participate in the competition also due to the health problems encountered following the coronavirus positivity. Medical tests carried out two months before the start of the tournament revealed cardiac anomalies that did not convince the Uefa leaders, despite the fact that he regularly continued to referee within the national borders. In any case, decidedly different rhythms as the race director himself admitted when he found himself commenting on Rosetti’s choice.

Previous

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The Pole and Inter have crossed paths on five occasions. The first dates back to the round of 16 of the Europa League 2014-15, when Wolsburg won 3-1 in the first leg. Then he refereed the match with Barcelona at San Siro in 2018, which ended 1-1; then the successes with Slavia Prague (1-3, Champions 2019-20), the Europa League semifinal with Shakhtar two years ago, which ended 5-0, and the first leg of the round of 16 with Liverpool of the Champions 2021-22. The balance with the Italians is also positive overall: 9 wins, 4 draws and 8 defeats. But his name evokes bad memories of the Romanist environment. He was at the Var in Porto-Roma in 2019, when the Giallorossi were denied a penalty for a contact between Schick and Marega at the end of extra time. Cakir, referee of the match, could not have a clear view of the episode because it was obstructed by a Portuguese player: “serious missed incident”, a classic protocol case in which you have to call your colleague on the field to the on-field review. A thought that crossed Marciniak’s mind, with the game that he did not resume immediately because of the evaluations of the video room, which then resolved into a stalemate. Another thorny case with Serie A teams dates back to the year before, during Tottenham-Juventus, when he denied a rather obvious penalty for Vertonghen’s foul on Douglas Costa. However, this mistake did not prevent Allegri’s team from winning at Wembley and eliminating the Londoners.

Controversy

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Marciniak’s name, however, ended up at the center of controversy even a year ago. Selected to direct the Arab Cup semi-final (official FIFA competition) between Qatar and Algeria in December, he conceded 9 minutes of injury time in the second half, although the interruptions did not justify such an additional time, and then extended it to 109 minutes. A juncture in which Qatar had found the same, and then suffered the 2-1 goal. Nor was the experience at the 2018 World Cup exciting, where he was no longer considered after the group stage following the negative direction of Germany-Sweden. But the past has passed, today he has proved to be a name worthy of such a delicate encounter.