Refereeing expert slams Exner over derby display: “HSV are right” | OneFootball

Were HSV treated unfairly in the northern derby against Werder Bremen? In any case, several tricky decisions went against the Rothosen.

After the 1-3 defeat, Merlin Polzin chose unusually blunt words. In TV interviews with DAZN and Sky , he repeatedly expressed his lack of understanding over referee Florian Exner’s performance.

Before the goal that made it 1-2, the Hanseatic head coach saw “a clear foul” on Warmed Omari and criticized the video assistant for not acting. Although the incident was briefly reviewed, there was ultimately no intervention.

“Our player gets the ball and is then hit from below. If the solution is that we have to tell our players to go down so we can review it longer, then that is not in the spirit of the game,” Polzin complained. He also could not understand the straight red card shown to Philip Otele.

Photo: IMAGO

Gräfe partly agrees with HSV criticism

Polzin is now receiving support for his criticism from a prominent refereeing expert — at least in part. Former Bundesliga referee Manuel Gräfe, like the HSV coach, judged there to have been a foul before Werder’s second goal. Speaking to Bild , he said: “Bremen were very lucky there. The HSV player gets the ball and the Bremen player clearly catches him. There should have been an intervention.”

Gräfe assessed Otele’s dismissal differently, however. “The Werder player clearly gets to the ball first,” he analyzed. In such a case, you “cannot come down with your studs upright on the opponent’s legs.” The use of video review and the subsequent red card were therefore unavoidable.

Nur die Raute – All the news about HSV

Overall, however, Gräfe gave Exner’s officiating a sobering review. The number of dismissals and the regular use of VAR showed “that the northern derby came too early for the still relatively inexperienced referee.”

Gräfe’s final verdict was: “Unfortunately, he increasingly lost control, paid his dues, and HSV are right to be frustrated.”

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