Tiago Silva hits out at António Nobre: “Same-side errors aren't chance” | OneFootball

FC Porto once again showed authority in the title race by beating Sporting de Braga 2-1 in the 27th round of the Liga Portugal Betclic. After falling behind, the Porto side turned the score around and remains comfortably clear at the top of the table.

Even so, despite the win, the match was marked by controversy, particularly over refereeing decisions that prompted a strong reaction from Tiago Silva, an FC Porto supporter and TV commentator.

He began by rejecting the idea that these were isolated mistakes: “Today I’m not going to talk about refereeing errors. I’m going to talk about a system,” he wrote, suggesting there is a repeated pattern in the decisions.

“Always making mistakes in the same direction is no longer a coincidence”

Tiago Silva backs up his view with several incidents from the match in Braga. One of the first moments he mentioned came in the 26th minute, when Zaidu was allegedly pushed near the edge of the opposition box.

“António Nobre was right on top of the play, saw what we all saw, and chose to ignore it: a dangerous free kick was not given, and a yellow card that would have been Niakaté’s first was not shown,” he criticized.

Right after that, the commentator pointed to a lack of consistency in the referee’s standard when awarding a penalty in Braga’s favor: “Half an hour later, the same referee had ‘eagle eyes’ to spot a harmless tug in FC Porto’s box and turn it into a penalty.”

For Tiago Silva, these incidents should not be viewed in isolation. “The problem was not mistakes. It was the pattern. Making mistakes many times, but always in the same direction,” he stressed, also adding an incident in the 61st minute, in which he believes a hard challenge on Varela went unpunished with the proper disciplinary sanction.

“We’re talking about a system, not refereeing”

The Porto supporter goes even further and places the referee’s performance within a broader context. “When there is a pattern like this, we are no longer talking about refereeing. We are talking about a system,” he said.

Tiago Silva also recalls previous matches to support his argument, stating that the same referee “has already spared Sporting two red cards in games that were level at the time.”

In that sense, he also criticized the appointment for a decisive match: “Whoever appointed a referee with this history for a game with an impact on the title race had the obligation to know that this could happen.”

Despite the criticism, the commentator highlighted FC Porto’s response on the pitch: “Thankfully, FC Porto did not surrender or accept the fate they were trying to hand them.”

With this victory, FC Porto remains firmly at the top of the league and strengthens its title bid, in a match where, for some, there was more than just football up for debate.

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