A robbery of Barça? Marciniak messes up again in the Champions League with a penalty by Cubarsí

Unfortunately, the Champions League semi-final second leg was marred by controversy. As we had anticipated in FCBN, the referees selected by UEFA for the match at the Giuseppe Meazza, led by the Polish referee Szymon Marciniak, tipped the scales in favor of the Italians with an invented penalty before halftime.

In the 44th minute, an Inter counter-attack ended in a pass from Marcus Thuram to Lautaro Martínez. The Argentine was shaping up to shoot, but Pau Cubarsí took a chance with a clean slide to clear the ball. Initially, the referee didn't call anything, but the Inter captain remained lying on the ground claiming a blow to his right ankle.

After a minute of uncertainty, the Dutch duo in the VOR room, consisting of Dennis Hingler and Pol van Boekel, called Marciniak to review a possible foul by the Barça center-back. The images showed that the '2' touched the ball first, but the Polish referee awarded the penalty after watching the video on the monitor.

Hakan Çalhanoğlu scored the penalty that made it 2-0 for Inter-Barça

The Turkish Hakan Çalhanoglu, a specialist, took charge of the penalty, deceiving Szczesny with a low, crossed shot. The entire Barça team protested and there was a small scuffle after the Inter players' celebration, but finally Barça went into halftime with a very tough two-goal deficit.

Lautaro himself had put the home side ahead in the 22nd minute, after a loss of possession by Dani Olmo in midfield was exploited by Inter to set up a lethal counter-attack. Denzel Dumfries enabled the Argentine and the '10' finished at will against Szczesny. Barça reacted in the following minutes, but lacked accuracy to reach the equalizer.