Referee Istvan Kovacs has come in for praise for his handling of Inter’s Champions League clash with Shakhtar Donetsk yesterday, with the important decisions deemed to have been gotten right.
The Romanian referee was given a grade of 6.5/10 for his performance in charge of the match in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, for a match in which refereeing controversy was fortunately not a big story on the night.
As the Corriere highlight, Kovacs awarded 35 fouls during the match and two yellow cards in total, with the match not having been a particularly fractious one.
A clash between Inter’s Denzel Dumfries and Shakhtar striker Lassina Traore left the Burkinabe forward with a bad injury, but was an unfortunate collision and Kovacs is deemed to have been correct not to punish Dumfries for the incident.
Meanwhile, an incident between Shakhtar right-back Dodo and Inter’s Federico Dimarco in the Nerazzurri penalty area is highlighted as another key moment where Kovacs made the right decision.
The Brazillian went to the ground and appealed for a penalty, but in the Corriere’s view it was a dive and not a penalty, so the referee was correct to wave play on though should have also handed out a yellow card to the Shakhtar man for simulation.
