Luciano, Rafael urge São Paulo after ref row: “Never us” | OneFootball

São Paulo are out of the Copa Sudamericana and now have no chance of winning a title this season. The Tricolor side failed to overturn the 1-0 defeat to Boca Juniors in the first leg and were held to a 1-1 draw with the Argentines in the match played on Tuesday night (15) at a packed Morumbi, in the second leg of the continental competition’s quarterfinals.

In the match, Tricolor managed to score shortly after conceding the equalizer, through Ryan Francisco, but the VAR officials ruled Luciano marginally offside in the build-up. The players also complained about the referee over other minor mistakes during the match, especially for failing to punish the Argentines’ time-wasting and gamesmanship.

“We knew they were going to do that. We kept asking him (the referee) to speed up the game the whole time, but we also have to realize that we are São Paulo, we have to be stronger behind the scenes, but now we move on,” Luciano said as he left the pitch in an interview with ESPN.

Goalkeeper Rafael echoed the São Paulo No. 10’s remarks, also calling for more strength behind the scenes on Tricolor’s side.

“It’s difficult. We’ve been suffering a lot throughout the year, not just this year but for a few years now, with this issue off the pitch as well, with referees often making things very difficult for us when we play away from home, and when we play at home, things end up being reversed and they don’t call against them what they call against us away from home,” said the keeper, who continued.

“And that hurts us a lot. This definitely also has to be looked at and pushed, because whether we like it or not, it affects the game a lot, the nerves, the guys wasted a lot of time today, and when we play away, the referee doesn’t even give us time to pick up the ball when it goes out of play. It’s a fair call (the offside on the goal), we can’t really say anything now as we’re leaving the pitch, but we’re upset because it’s always on the details, things always go the other way and not our way,” complained Tricolor’s No. 23.

With the Sudamericana no longer on the schedule, São Paulo must now focus all their efforts on the final stretch of the Brazilian Championship to climb the table, definitively avoid relegation and, who knows, maybe dream of a place in the next Copa Libertadores.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.