Explained: Why Liverpool went from potential penalty to Madrid drop-ball after Tchouameni handball | OneFootball

Liverpool felt they should’ve had a penalty in their 1-0 win over Real Madrid on Tuesday night. Instead, the final decision was a dropped ball for the visitors.

Half an hour into the match, which was goalless at that point, Dominik Szoboszlai’s shot struck the hand of Aurelien Tchouameni, with Istvan Kovacs initially awarding a free kick just outside the box.

The referee was summoned to the pitchside VAR monitor to review whether the infringement took place inside the penalty area, but he ultimately decided that no handball infringement had occurred and instead restarted play with a dropped ball to Los Blancos.

Why did Real Madrid get a dropped ball?

The decision would’ve perplexed and annoyed Liverpool fans, and Dale Johnson (Football Issues Correspondent with BBC Sport) has now explained why the officials arrived at their eventual call.

He outlined that it was ‘a factual decision’ and that ‘the position where the handball happened, would only be made by the VAR, not the referee’, adding that ‘a referee is only sent to the monitor to judge a subjective decision, in this case handball. By going to the screen, the referee was overturning his decision to give the handball.’

On why play was restarted with a dropped ball for Real Madrid, Johnson stated: ‘The handball factually took place inside the box; it’s a penalty, and a penalty is reviewable by the VAR. If the handball had been confirmed as outside the area, the free-kick would have stood regardless of being right or wrong.’

He added: ‘Because it’s an overturned penalty, play restarts with the goalkeeper – effectively meaning Liverpool give up their attacking possession.’

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

A puzzling decision which could’ve cost Liverpool but thankfully didn’t

That at least clears up the confusion as to why Real Madrid were given a dropped ball, but we’re still baffled as to how Kovacs – who also annoyed Alexis Mac Allister for inadvertently halting a promising Liverpool attack – deviated from his original handball decision.

Tchouameni’s arm certainly appeared to be sufficiently extended for a foul to be justified, and the Romanian official should’ve stuck with his original inclination that there was a handball offence and then given a penalty once he saw on the monitor that it happened inside the box.

Ultimately the decision didn’t impact the result as the Reds won, but had it finished as a draw or a one-goal away victory, it would’ve been a lot more controversial and most likely dominated the post-match discussion.

Thankfully that isn’t the case, although the officials’ thought process was still baffling, and it could’ve cost Liverpool big time only for Mac Allister’s deserved winning goal.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Real Madrid press conference via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: