“Thief! Totally out of football”

Gasperini wrote history at Atalanta for years, but the reunion with his former team brought him only bitterness. AS Roma, whom he now coaches, lost 1-0, from a goal analyzed by VAR, before it was awarded (min. 12).

Although the hosts had a second goal cancelled, signed by Scamacca (min. 28), due to offside, the Romanian coach blamed the referee at the end! He claimed that the goalkeeper Svilar was fouled by the first goal of the Bergamo team by Scalvini himself.

Gian Piero Gasperini: “There were hands in front of Svilar and contact with the arms, an unprecedented absurdity”

“It was an absurd goal, given the current VAR rules. My players were sure it was illegal. It's inexplicable that it was called and that such mistakes are made. We sat down for three minutes to assess it for nothing.

Gian Piero Gasperini is waiting for the striker who will bring the desired goals to AS Roma, but also a stopper / Photo: Imago

So, the rules change every time. There were hands in front of Svilar and contact with arms, an absurdity never seen before,” complained Gasperini, whose conclusion was that “their goal decisively influenced the final result. These things are outside of football.”

And yet! At the corner from which the score was opened, the hand touching goalkeeper Svilar's face is that of a defender from Rome, so of his own teammate! Scalvini also seems to touch the Serbian goalkeeper in the jump, at most with the left, but on the shoulder, from behind.

Controversial disallowance of Scamacca's goal

Gasperini does not say anything about the other goal, the one disallowed by Atalanta in the 28th minute. Scamacca scored with a header from Bernasconi's cross, but after six minutes of analysis in the VAR room, i.e. on the monitor on the edge of the field, the referees decided that the author was offside when the phase started and later actively contributed to its construction, not counting the completion.

The decision was strongly contested by the hosts, considering the particularities of the phase. At the time of the long pass from the defense, Scamacca was offside, but he did not play the ball at that moment, but only after the pass was blocked by an opponent, the stopper Mario Hermoso, who tried to stop the ball but took it wide. This despite the fact that there were several meters between Scamacca and Hermoso!

Scamacca took advantage of the Iberian's wide takeover, recovered, and from there the phase developed until he ended up heading in Bernasconi's cross. Although the Roma defender played the ball, “central” Michael Fabbri felt that Scamacca should still be penalized for offside.