Iturralde González slams José Bessa in Arouca v Benfica: He was wrong | OneFootball

Iturralde González argues that there was no penalty missed in Arouca. In analyzing the incidents that marked the games of Benfica and Porto, the experienced Spanish referee condemned the behavior of José Bessa for pushing Samuel Dahl.

"What I am sure of is that it is not a VAR play. First, it is not a clear, obvious, and manifest error. Second, the referee is watching the action from the front, the ball does not reach the location of the possible penalty, and then, what does the defender [Fontán] do? He puts his hands over in the ball dispute, and I think the forward [Pavlidis] also does quite a bit to let himself fall", began the former Spanish referee.

"As he sees that he no longer has a chance to finish, because the ball is cut before, I think he throws himself to the ground. It is 100% a referee's play. If the referee thought the hold was enough for a penalty, the VAR would not call him to say otherwise. But I think he did well to let it go. For me, it is not a 90/10 [%] or 95/5 penalty, it is 60/40. It is a play where the VAR cannot intervene, it is for the referee, and the referee has already seen it", concluded Iturralde González, to the newspaper Record.

Another moment that marked the match was the way José Bessa interacted with Samuel Dahl, pushing the Benfica player, behavior that was not approved by Iturralde González: "The referee was very wrong. He cannot grab or push a player, he loses the authority given to him by the rules and admonitions".

"Why can a referee push or grab a player and the player, on the other hand, cannot do the same to him? The referee was wrong there. He needs to be calmer when managing problems", explained the Spaniard, in statements to the newspaper Record.

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