Former Italian football referee turned football pundit Paolo Casarin has praised referee Federico La Penna and VAR operator Rosario Abisso for their respective performances in Inter’s 4-2 win over Torino at the weekend.
The match saw no shortage of action and saw two penalties awarded, the first of which led to a lengthy stop in the game whilst it was examined by Abisso and then highlighted to La Penna who then examined the footage and overturned his decision.
Inter wing-back Ashley Young kicked Torino’s Wilfried Singo in the chest but La Penna initially never awarded the penalty however after reviewing the footage and after three minutes of waiting around, La Penna rightly awarded a penalty to the visitors, who scored and made it 2-0 to themselves at the time.
“In Inter-Torino , La Penna reached a good agreement with VAR operator Abisso after more than three minutes of uncertainty.
“Young’s penalty foul on the Granata player was clear even much earlier,” Casarin explained in his analysis of this weekend’s refereeing in today’s print edition of Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.
He then added: “The penalty given away by Nkoulou of Torino was more complicated than ‘playing’ the ball as it allowed Hakimi back into play as he was initially offside, and he caused the penalty foul.”