Diego Simeone criticises refereeing performance in Atletico Madrid’s defeat to Lille | OneFootball

Atletico Madrid collapsed to another disappointing Champions League defeat on Wednesday, as Lille left the Metropolitano with a 3-1 victory. It’s now back-to-back losses in the competition for Los Colchoneros, whose hopes of automatically qualifying for the last 16 are all-but over.

Atleti had taken the lead early on, before conceding three unanswered goals. The big moment in the match came when Lille were awarded a controversial penalty at 1-1, which allowed Jonathan David to put the Ligue 1 side ahead. Diego Simeone was far from happy about it, as per Diario AS.

“There’s nothing. Why did they whistle? They said handball, then a push. Hopefully we can see something. Someone from UEFA should tell us that the referee was right and the VAR did not intervene for something. Hopefully it will happen to us in our favour. It takes the game to 1-2, and again, bad luck costs us so much in the game.”

It wasn’t only the referee that Simeone was not happy about. He also lamented his Atletico Madrid side’s inability to extend their lead, before it was completely overturned.

“Before the brutal mistake of the referee and the VAR, it was our lack of forcefulness of not being able to score three goals. We had such a good game with three or four goal situations, but we didn’t have the forcefulness that this competition asked for and that’s not how it works.

“We had chances and the penalty takes the game where it didn’t seem like it should go. We’re in a very difficult moment in the Champions League, we have to go and play against PSG and we’re in a complicated situation.”