Iturralde González backs Sporting, rips into Porto’s narrative | OneFootball

Iturralde González, former international Spanish referee, analyzed the main controversial moments of the Classic between Sporting and Porto, related to the first leg of the Portuguese Cup semi-finals, and once again pointed out one of the problems he considers most serious in current football: simulations.

In his analysis of the match held in Alvalade, conducted for the newspaper Record, the former Spanish referee highlighted that many of the controversial moments end up arising from the players' own behaviors, who seek to exaggerate or provoke fouls to influence the decision of the refereeing team, especially regarding the foul that Porto complains about.

Regarding the incident that would give the second yellow and consequent red card to Alberto Costa, for an infraction on Geny Catamo, the expert had no doubts: "A very clear yellow. Whether for the foul itself, because he slides on the pitch, knocking down Geny Catamo, or simply because he stops a promising attack, from which a cross could have emerged. Any of these could be a reason for a yellow card. He doesn't manage to cut the ball and what he does is hit the player when he was heading towards the area. Clearly, a yellow card was missing."

Immediately after, regarding the penalty kick that decided the game - where Morten Hjulmand was brought down by Fofana in Porto's area - Iturralde González ends up agreeing with Cláudio Pereira's decision: "This one is different, it's much more of a penalty. These are the types of actions that the player doesn't intend to do. Fofana goes to kick the ball, but Hjulmand gets ahead and ends up hitting the Sporting midfielder, almost on the thigh. It's a reckless play by the Porto player who wanted to get to the ball first, but couldn't."

Before finishing, the former international referee 'dismantles' Porto's complaints, which claim a foul by Maxi Araújo on Pepê, but which Cláudio Pereira called a simulation: "The referee did very well, it's not a foul. It's true that Maxi Araújo places his hands a bit on Pepê's back, but he feels the contact and lets himself fall. We're talking about simulations again... It's not possible that out of 50 referees, in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Germany, in these types of plays, when the defender is shielding the ball, feels slight contact, and lets himself fall, that only one would whistle. It makes it seem like that referee is wrong, but he's the one who's right. There's no foul at all, but the players already know that 90% of them would have whistled in favor of the defending team. However, they can't let this be a kind of Robin Hood, they all have to do it and put an end to the simulation."

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