On equal terms

The refereeing team

Mr. Vad was generally o.k., letting the game flow, though sometimes things looked suspicious while no team were penalised. Unfortunately, the two most crucial decisions for the outcome of the contest were probably made by others in the refereeing team. In the 29th minute, Bate's Mladenovic grabbed a Barcelona player who had possession of the ball, from behind while both players were inside Bate's penalty-box. Initially the referee turned away from the scene starting to follow the flow of the game towards the centre of the field, but then he suddenly turned backwards and pointed towards the penalty-spot. It was clear he got a signal from one of his assistants. As the camera was not focussing on ar Albert, which means no flag was raised, it was most probably aar Farkas who called the foul. In the 49th minute we witnessed an almost carbon-copy of the incudent. Barcelona's Adriano grabbed an opponent from behind at almost the same spot where the 29th minute infringement had been committed. As before, the referee didn't whistle, but this time neither Albert nor Farkas came for his rescue. Thus, trailing 0-1 at that moment, Bate were denied a penalty they deserved to be awarded, and in the remaining 44 minutes (including stoppage time) conceded another two goals. The ars, Albert and Berettyan were sticking to the interpretation which should have been scrapped, that a player is deemed offside only if he touched the ball. Thus the attack benefited when players who were actually offside didn't touch the ball put pressure on defenders or influenced them to clear the ball out of touch (eg. 5', 25', 32').