“It’s the first Champions League game Liverpool have lost this season but we got there. We’ll enjoy it. Not too long as we have Chelsea coming up but, yeah, we’ll enjoy it.”
62 minutes into Liverpool’s semi-final second leg and they were 7-4 up on aggregate. Still, given the recent goal-glut that has swept Europe and the Reds’ shaky defence, getting to the final was not guaranteed.
Then, after another scramble in the Liverpool box, the ball fell to Stephan el-Shaarawy at the back post. His shot was blocked by the raised arm of Trent Alexander-Arnold and all that Roma got in return was a corner kick.
The missed hand-ball was one of a series of questionable calls at the Stadio Olimpico but both sides can legitimately claim to have missed out on big decisions.
Liverpool themselves had a solid penalty claim rejected when Sadio Mané was clearly pushed over in the box, after only 10 minutes, while no-one quite knows how Alessandro Florenzi escape a red card for his two-footed lunge in the second half.
Following Roma’s 4-2 win, which saw them knocked out 6-7 on aggregate, their captain Daniele De Rossi was asked about that Alexander-Arnold hand-ball.
De Rossi, according to BT’s James Horncastle, was not willing to lean on that decision as a crutch. He commented:
“Edin Dzeko and I didn’t realise Alexander Arnold handled the ball so it can happen that the ref didn’t see it.”
Fair play to the bearded Giallorossi captain. Liverpool fans would have appreciated those comments but not half as much as the post-match remark made by Virgil Van Dijk.
In a defence that shipped four goals, the Liverpool central defender still had a solid outing and spoke with BT after the game. When asked about the Alexander-Arnold decision and foul in the box on Dzeko that was missed, the Dutchman replied:
“Who cares?
“We still would be through. We had a couple of decisions we didn’t get too. That’s football.”
https://twitter.com/saintlawren/status/991788659681759232?s=19
Luis Suarez must have been proud watching that goal-line clearance from the young Liverpool defender and he would have agreed with Van Dijk’s sentiments.
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