Referee Davide Massa has come under fire for his role in allowing yesterday evening’s Coppa Italia semifinal first leg match between Inter and Juventus get out of hand and degenerate into a post-match brawl.
The 41-year-old official faced criticism in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, via FCInterNews, who suggest that he failed to keep a lid on things, and this is why a previously relatively calm match turned into a farcical and physical brawl.
Whilst yesterday evening’s match had been relatively without controversy by the standards of the Derby d’Italia fixture, stoppage time saw things completely degenerate as both sets of players were involved in heated physical confrontations.
The sequence of events roughly went as follows:
Inter were awarded a penalty for a handball by Bianconeri defender Bremer in the area, which Massa was correct to award, although the Corriere questions why the referee took more than two minutes to finally award the spot kick for such an apparently obvious decision.
Then, Inter striker Romelu Lukaku scored from the spot to give his team the late equalizer.
The Belgian celebrated his goal with a “silencing the crowd” gesture which his coach Simone Inzaghi pointed out is his normal goal celebration, but referee Massa evidently saw it as inciting the crowd and so gave him a yellow card.
Given that Lukaku had already been booked earlier on for a challenge on Juventus defender Federico Gatti, this meant that the Inter striker was sent off.
Inter’s players were visibly confused and irate at the decision from Massa to give a yellow card for what didn’t appear to be anything more than a relatively benign celebration.
Nerazzurri players surrounded the official, whilst Juventus players also got involved.
Things boiled over, and whilst play was restarted eventually, Massa soon blew the triple-whistle to signify the end of the match, although things were hardly over from there.
Nerazzurri and Bianconeri players continued their heated confrontations with one another, on the pitch and in the tunnel, and when all was said and done both Inter captain Samir Handanovic and Juventus wingback Juan Cuadrado were also given red cards for their own spat.
Amid all of the chaos, there was also the scandal of Juventus fans hurling racially offensive chants at Inter striker Lukaku during his goal celebration, an aspect which makes the harsh punishment received by the Nerazzurri striker appear even more questionable.
The Corriere also notes that it was Massa who was the match official for the Derby della Capitale fixture between Lazio and Roma just before the international break.
Like the Derby d’Italia, the match between city rivals Lazio and Roma is always one that threatens to boil over, and on that particular instance it certainly did.
For the newspaper, the parallel is impossible not to notice, as it was the same referee who appeared insensitive to the dynamics of the match.
Once again in the dying minutes of yesterday evening’s Coppa Italia match between Inter and Juventus, Massa’s decisions and demeanour managed to confuse and irritate the players in an atmosphere that is never easy to control.
As such, the Corriere notes, the referee managed to lose all authority and control, and for the newspaper, is the first person to blame for the chaos that broke out.