Atletico Madrid midfielder Giuliano Simeone protested two penalty appeals his side were denied as they were knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Bukayo Saka’s first-half tap-in at the Emirates Stadium was enough for Arsenal to seal a 2-1 aggregate victory after a 1-1 stalemate in the Spanish capital in the first leg.
The result ended what had started looking like a fairytale run for Atletico, managed by Giuliano Simeone’s father Diego, but was not without controversy.
Atletico believed they should have been granted two penalty appeals, with Giuliano Simeone continuing the protests against the officials’ decision after the game.
The Argentine posted two screenshots of the game to his Instagram story showing an incident when Riccardo Calafiori pushed him in the box, which was flagged offside.
The first contentious incident occurred early in the second half when Simeone outwitted Arsenal defender William Saliba and intercepted a poor backpass to Gunners keeper David Raya, with Simeone through on goal, before Gabriel intervened with a tackle inside the penalty area, appearing to shove Simeone.
However neither referee Daniel Siebert, his assistants nor VAR deemed the contact worthy of rewarding with a spot-kick.
Simeone said afterwards: “It was all very fast but what I felt was that when I was taking the shot he destabilized me and I couldn’t shoot well. It’s what I felt.
“The referee didn’t even go to check the VAR. The same happened in the play with Antoine (Griezmann).”
The second incident occurred shortly after when Riccardo Calafiori brought down Atletico’s Antoine Griezmann in the box, with VAR reviewing the strong challenge.
However no penalty was awarded as Atletico full-back Marc Pubill was judged to have fouled Gabriel Magalhaes in the build-up to that incident, with former Champions League referee Mark Clattenburg explaining the rationale behind the decision on broadcaster Amazon Prime.
He said: “I think what the VAR has looked at is Calafiori's challenge on Grizemann. He believes that's a penalty kick, and replays show it was, but there was a foul just before on Gabriel.
"So they had to check the foul first and he agrees with the referee's analysis of a foul. Therefore, the foul outweighs the penalty kick.”
Diego Simeone attempted to downplay the referee’s calls afterwards but was evidently disappointed, saying: “There’s nothing to say. We are out and we need to congratulate Arsenal. We have to keep working. We won’t focus on a detail that can be seen and is very obvious.”
Atletico midfielder Koke said: “I’m not going to talk about the referee, I’m sure he tried to do his best, just like it happened in the first match. He’ll know how he should have refereed. I imagine that he tried his best.”
