Rui Costa blasts refereeing after Porto v Benfica: ‘Double standards’ | OneFootball

Rui Costa did not hide his dissatisfaction with Miguel Nogueira’s refereeing after Benfica’s 1-3 defeat to FC Porto at the Estádio do Dragão. The Benfica president pointed to an alleged “double standard,” especially in disciplinary matters, although he also acknowledged the mistakes made by his own team.

On his way out of the stadium, the Eagles’ leader began by highlighting Benfica’s strong start to the match, regretting that Lenglet’s sending-off in the 35th minute affected the rest of the game: “Benfica started this game very well. They took control of the match just as Marco Silva had strategically asked the players to do. We had a very good first half hour, even though, from the only slip-up we had, we ended up conceding a goal,” he began.

Rui Costa believes that numerical equality could have changed the course of the match, given what Benfica managed to produce in the opening minutes: “Of course, playing here with 10 men is not the same as playing 11 against 11, and I believe that if that had been the case, the result would have been different, or the game would have been different, based on what we were doing,” he said.

Regarding the red card shown to Lenglet, the Benfica president did not want to directly challenge Miguel Nogueira’s decision, but felt that the French defender, already on a yellow, should have avoided the contact: “I’m not going to argue about Lenglet’s sending-off, even though, if you look at it, André Silva complains about his face when it was just a small, slight blow to the back of the head — it wasn’t even to the face. But I’m not going to discuss the incident, because especially here, after already having a yellow, he cannot risk an action like that,” he explained.

“As for the double standard, especially in disciplinary matters, I think there is a tremendous double standard. There is a tremendous double standard where Benfica were heavily punished by it, because the number of fouls FC Porto commit, beyond the normal foul and which are not punished with a yellow card, gives strength to one team and takes it away from the other. There were a series of challenges, a series of fouls by FC Porto players that had to be punished, even before Lenglet’s sending-off. I see Prestianni get booked for showing the referee his face covered in blood, after taking a blow almost off the ball that was not even sanctioned,” he said.

Despite the criticism of the refereeing, Benfica’s president was keen to acknowledge that the team also made mistakes during the match: “Without taking away from the mistakes we made — because we did end up making mistakes —, the double standard, especially in disciplinary criteria, was far too excessive,” he concluded.

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