Controversy in Serie A: Did Juventus win unjustly? Lecce coach complains about referee’s wrong decisions

Was Lecce damaged in the match against Juventus? Coach Roberto D’Aversa believes that the referee misjudged three incidents in the duel at the Italian giant’s ground that led to his team’s disadvantage.

Juventus won 1-0 against Lecce in the sixth round of Serie A on Tuesday, with Arkadiusz Milik scoring the only goal in the 57th minute.

However, visiting coach Roberto D’Aversa is convinced that referee Antonio Giua did not handle all the incidents on the pitch correctly. In particular, he mentioned three moments that helped Lecce’s failure at Juventus Stadium.

It should be noted, the Salentini, along with Inter, were the only team that hadn’t lost in the new Serie A season so far. But of course, that is no longer the case after the loss to Juventus. So what were the three controversial moments D’Aversa identified?

The first was a corner kick, which was eventually followed by a goal a few moments later. However, D’Aversa states that it was Juventus player Adrien Rabiot who touched the ball last.

Juventus defender Daniele Rugani should have played a handball on his execution, but referee Giua did not whistle that either. Lecce then briefly gained possession of the ball before the action leading to the goal. You can see the whole situation in the video below.

We shouldn’t always need VAR…

Anyway, it does mean that by Lecce managing to kick the ball away from goal from the corner kick, the corner itself was not the direct action leading to the goal. And thus the goal Milik scored was outside the scope of VAR.

The third incident took place in the 93rd minute when Mohamed Kaba was shown a second yellow card for simulation when he simply tripped and lost his balance after a confrontation with an opposing player.

And as VAR cannot interfere with the awarding of yellow cards unless it is a potential penalty, the next yellow card awarded had to stand.

“I think the referee made some wrong decisions. I can assure you that Kaba did not try to simulate a foul. We lost an important player because of these two yellow cards, but on the other hand I don’t want to create an alibi for my team, ” said the D’Aversa coach, quoted by Football Italia.

“We regret the obvious mistake at Rabiot’s corner, but we shouldn’t always need VAR to get involved (and correct the referee’s decision). It was an even match and we lost it,” the Lecce coach added.

Source: Football Italia, Twitter / X