This is
not the first time we’ve faced the Bianconeri in Turin and faced a scandal. It
kind of seems like it always happens there. Which we never seem to mind if it
plays out for us, in our house or there. But there is also a dangerous and
growing conspiracy theory out there that started, actually with those cry baby
cheating Inter scumbags (that’s the unbiased technical terminology, the
vernacular is much worse.) Then Napoli joined them because there were no territorial
discrimination witchhunts available at the time. Most famously, this past week,
De Laurentiis accused journalists in the north of being biased (but you know,
that’s not territorial discrimination at all,) and a La Gazzetta dello Sport
journalist had his car destroyed by Napoli fans. So I’m sure the man who hops
onto scooters with random strangers and incites violence must be right. All
Juventus ref calls are clearly biased and unmerited and that is why they, with
the strongest and most coveted team in Italy, clearly own the referees. It’s a
scandal.
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| The Equalizer |
First of
all, the only scandal I saw was that Dybala was completely overlooked for the
Academy Awards this year. He was whining and diving and throwing himself around
like a possessed rag doll. I think I might actually hate him. Wow, that doesn’t
happen often. But the award wouldn’t only go to him for the acting. He was
dangerous, as were all of Juve’s attackers. A conservative count put them at 24
shots, with 11 of those on goal. It seemed like more. In fact, it’s incredible
that it took until the 30th for Benatia to score. 1-0.
The other
scandal is that Donnarumma’s superhuman efforts were not rewarded. Save after
save after incredibly impossible save. He was unbelievable. Nine saves in all,
but again, it seemed like more. He even helped tip over a wild clearance from
Bacca in the 51st that would have definitely been an own goal. Speaking of
Baccca, in the 43rd, he took a cross in from Deulofeu, who apparently is so
comfortable on the left now that he switched over, and Bacca just hit it home
to even things up. I think it was our only shot on target in the first half. We
eventually took six shots with a total of two on target.
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| The dive and the assist, an all around performance |
The
yellows came, but Massa was prudent with them. Pasalic got one for a foul on
Pjanic in the 23rd. Then Deulofeu, seeing his former Barca teammates dive and
thrive earlier this week, did his own part to carry the Barca tradition and got
carded for it in the 39th. Ocampos’ yellow was really mainly for being clumsy
in the 57th. He was kind of in over his head in this game, we really missed
Suso. Romagnoli’s was ridiculously stupid in the 61st, he earned his for
dissent. And while only the ref report would possibly tell us what he said to
the ref to earn it, it’s not his first time on that ride. Sosa did pretty well
until the 89th when he was obviously tired and came in late on a tackle. And he made up
for a good game by getting himself sent off in stoppage time after a second
yellow in the 90th +3. Both he and Romagnoli will be suspended for Genoa.
To that
end, the man Milan fans are burning in effigy, the villain of all villains,
Massa, actually reffed a really good match. Well until the bitter end. And by
bitter, I mean if you lost your job, your family, your car, were hit by a bus,
attacked by a lion, set on fire, and dropped in a volcano where you were
impaled kind of bitter. At 94:20, with four minutes of stoppage time, De
Sciglio was whistled for a handball and a penalty given to Juventus. This is a
crime worse than if the Pope started stealing babies and selling them for hookers
and drugs, apparently. Now comes the fun part though. That was the call, then
the penalty was taken and converted by that ragdoll diving kid, and then time
was up. 2-1 Juventus. Personally, during all of the shoving and swarming that
we typically see from Juventus (but I thought Milan had left behind,) the
highlight of the whole match was Donnarumma wisely shielding Dani Alves and
forcing him away from the fray. If you were crying too hard or screaming or
breaking things or already on Twitter typing conspiracy theories, go back and
watch. It was GOLD.
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| Like the Hulk, Juve wouldn't like him when he's angry |
The
penalty wasn’t the scandal though. The fans were. Sure, we saw Bacca angrily
going after the refs, and Montella physically pushing him away. Donnarumma was
lip-read to say something that everyone on social media wanted him to say so
they could blow it out of context. We saw Galliani on the pitch, probably just dreaming
of his next meal at Giannino. Nothing was remotely as scandalous as the fan
reaction to this.
For
entertainment value, there were fans explaining why it wasn’t a penalty, which
is standard after a call they don’t like. Some people were telling me that it
shouldn’t have been a penalty because it was too tight and De Sciglio could
never have moved away from the ball in time. (laughter break) Others trying to
argue his hand was or wasn’t in a natural or unnatural position, often saying
it backwards like a small child might. (the laughter is a nice reprieve from
the pain of the loss, thank you.) More fans jumping on whatever the news
outlets were saying. You know those same people who say that Messi is linked with
Palermo or something with a straight face? Yes, they lie to us all year round.
But when we are angry and hurting and vindictive, they are our CHAMPIONS OF
TRUTH.
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| The absolute worst way to lose |
The truth
is only Massa and his team can say why they called it a handball. And I’ll let
you in on a little secret, VAR would not have solved this controversy. Because
within the handball rule is a little word with giant repercussions called
“intent.” I always find that amusing because no one can possibly determine
someone else’s intent unless they are a mindreader or if all of the players
start narrating their every move and wear mics, etc. The replays I’ve seen are
all terrible angles, but I noticed that he did try to move his arm back and
away, which movement is unfortunately one of the things they train refs to look for to judge
intent. It's kind of counterintuitive. It really didn’t seem like a strong case for a handball necessarily,
but at the end of the day, Massa did call it after consulting with his linesman
(even though media outlets are claiming that Massa called it instead of his
linesman,) and if you want to play the game, you have to accept ref calls, no
matter how painful. The handball was literally a 50/50 call, as most are. But
the scandal is that too many people believe otherwise and are propagating the anger and hate into something that is more hurtful.
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| Hope Locatelli is ready for Genoa |
As for stoppage time… I was going to try to make a little graphic, but you know what? People who can’t sort this out aren’t going to be helped by all of that work, anyway. So let’s begin: This is how stoppage time works. The head ref keeps a special watch on his arm with at least two timers. One is a running clock, the other he stops and starts whenever the ball is not in play, like for injuries or for cards or whatever. At the end of regulation, it shows him the difference. He rounds this to the nearest minute and informs the fourth official. But it is up to his discretion and only he knows the exact time. Once stoppage time is in use, if there is a dead ball, he stops stoppage time. When play restarts, he starts his watch. So for example, in stoppage time at this match there was 8-10 seconds of down time early on, in the 91st minute for a foul or something. Then at 92:16, Sosa was sent off. This whole process took about 40 seconds. Then again at 93:20 for about 30 seconds play was stopped to check an injury or something (I think something happened off camera.) The handball was whistled at 94:20, which was actually well within the initial four added minutes by virtue of rounding. And it took everyone a full two minutes and five seconds until Dybala took his penalty. So either you look at the 3.4 minutes of stoppage time within stoppage time and get that final whistle at 96:25, which is just about perfect. Or you look at the fact that when the handball occurred, the ref was perhaps waiting for an appropriate time that he was able to whistle (due to advantage, etc.) He couldn’t stop the game after an infraction like that, he had to wait for the penalty. Which took until minute 96:25 because the players were swarming he and his linesman and wouldn’t line up. Either way, the stoppage time was managed perfectly. The ignorance, on the other hand, not so much.
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| A bigger man than all of us, literally and figuratively |
As for
the positioning of Massa and which official called the penalty, that has also gotten blown
way out of proportion. First of all, to be completely accurate, the first
official always calls the penalty. His assistants communicate to him if they
see something that he didn’t, but it's up to the head official whether or not to call it. But if it is true and he called it from behind,
his vantage point was definitely poor. However, that doesn’t automatically make it wrong. It
happens all the time. And Massa did the right thing to go and consult the
linesman, too. That is exactly what refs are trained to do. If you think there
is some controversy there, then you are making that controversy up. And the
media outlets perpetuating this nonsense and people posting pics of his
position are more wrong than any mistake Massa may have made.
There is
a dangerous mindset that is being perpetuated by fans, social media, the people
who claim to be the media, and crazy owners who ride on scooters that this is
part of a larger plan. Juventus get calls for and against all the time. All
clubs have controversial calls. In the initial leg, we won because a Pjanic
goal was incorrectly called back for offside. None of this conspiracy stuff
happened, even if we got a lot of lucky calls in the first half of the season,
many at San Siro. But if it happens in Juventus Stadium, then people take
notice. I mean if it happens there, then clearly Moggi himself is reffing
disguised as Massa, while taking bribes, giving out intentionally controversial
calls, and doping the Juve squad while they are on the pitch and betting that
Juventus will get a penalty call. Wait, some of you might believe that. NO!
This is football. There are good moments and poor moments. There has been a
rash of poor reffing lately, which happens more the more myopic fans and the
media become. Refs make more mistakes as they try to adjust and get it right.
But the calls have been exaggerated and reported incorrectly by media and
social media, and some good old fashioned hate mixed in to create more extreme
controversy. That is the crime. All of you and the media and De Laurentiis and
well pretty much everyone who doesn’t support Juventus are creating a false
reality where hostility has already turned into actual physical damage in real
life. That is not cool. That is not what Maldini would do. I miss when Milan
fans had class.
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| Love is always the answer |
Even if
you were hurt and angry in the heat of the moment, it is never appropriate to
pass along stereotypes and unfounded conspiracy theories. That is the scandal
here. Not only will much of this last, because everyone knows what Twitter says
is true, right? And what some longtime Milan fan with a bit of objectivity, a lot of
football knowledge, and some background in reffing has to say isn’t even on your radar. We
live in an age where everyone has become a teenage girl, waiting for the next
bit of gossip or controversy and jumping to conclusions. Believe what Twitter spits out 30 seconds after a contentious call rather than think for yourself, maybe watch again, add some perspective and maybe wait for 60 seconds before tweeting. Because doing the first part is easier
than facing reality. Juventus are a better team. They had more shots on goal
than we had shots total. If we had done our job, De Sciglio’s handball
controversy wouldn’t have mattered. In the end, it’s football. We didn’t play
great, but we defended like crazy for 90+ minutes. Everything else undermines
everything our guys gave out there tonight. And the class that used to be
associated with this club. And now people’s lives and property are endangered
with every single person who buys into this acrimony. Follow Donnarumma’s lead.
He gave it his all. He saw the handball/non-handball just a few feet away from
him. And even if he got a little angry, he kept himself under control. And then
he did the most spectacular thing: he kissed the crest. Not hate, love. The
message to Juve fans was loud and clear: he will never go play there. And that
was actually a wonderful thing to come out of this match. But it was done with
the class and wisdom of a Baresi or a Maldini. And that is what we all should
do in a difficult time like this – not hate or rage or propagate lies and
conspiracies – follow the example of our youngest player and simply kiss the
crest.
This post inspired
by the music of Savages's "The Answer"
Our next match is
Milan vs. Genoa
Saturday, March 18 •
20:45 CET (3:45pm EST)*
*Time difference due
to Daylight Savings Time change in the U.S.