A tale of handball and chewing-gum

Referee and assistants

Generally, Mr. Tagliavento had a decent game, but at the end all goes down to his myopia and assessment concerning handball situations. It started in the third minute of the game when he was saved by ar Stefani who a good and solid evening. It went on in the 48th minute he didn't detect a Benfica's forward handball, awarding instead a consequential corner-kick to Benfica. Then came the worst mistake, which I would like to attribute mainly to ar Maggiani - the Terri hand ball deep inside the Celsea penalty area (60') when the score was yet 0-0. Later there was another case of arguably Chelsea handball about 20m in front of their goal (66') though there was no replay, and the wrongly assessed incident about 18m from the Chelsea goal when a Chelsea player (Ramires?) hit the ball deliberately with his arm and Mr. Tagliavento indicated it wasn't so (88'). Let's get back to the crucial Terri handball. It resembled very much the notorious Pique handball in the infamous Ovrebo encounter. The difference this time was the position of the ref: Tagliavento was behind Terri and it probably happened on his blind sight. On the other hand the infringement took place in front of ar Maggiani and nothing could have barred him from seeing it clearly. But no flag or verbal sign was there to call the ref's attention... Mr. Maggiani was also responsible for two strange throw-in calls in minutes 44 and 63. Moreover his allout performance was diminished by his chewing-gum demeanour. In front of many millions of eyes, the man didn't stop chewing, undoubtedly with the consent of Tagliavento. And esthetics more than once turn into qualities...