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Napoli manager Luciano Spalletti feels hard done by following unfavourable refereeing calls as his team crashed out of the Champions League.
Napoli boss Luciano Spalletti has fingered multiple refereeing calls that went against his team as he analysed his team's crash out of Europe's elite competition.
Napoli drew 1-1 on the night, but a 1-0 defeat in the first-leg meant they were knocked out of the Champions League with a 2-1 aggregate result.
The match in brief
Milan were given a penalty, which Giroud missed in the 22nd minute of the game, but the French striker made up for it in the 43rd minute, tapping him from close range after Rafael Leao squared the ball to him.
Napoli were given a penalty of their own in the second-half, but Khvicha Kvaratskhelia failed to convert. On the 93rd minute mark, Victor Osimhen scored an equaliser for the hosts, but it was too late to start a comeback.
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What Spalletti said
Spalletti started by criticising the yellow card to Kim Min-Jae and the red card to Zambia Anguissa in the first-leg which earned both players suspensions, effectively ruling them out of today's match. The Italian manager believes the bookings were unjust.
“In my opinion, two players were unjustly suspended in the first leg. On what was the evaluation of the first game, I also saw the newspapers lined up in the inconsistency,” he said, per the BBC.
He went on to complain about a penalty his team were not given in the 37th minute of the game when Leao looked to have clattered Hirving Lozano in the box, but upon review by VAR, a spot kick was not given.
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22:00 - 18.04.2023
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The 64-year-old believed there was enough contact to earn his team a penalty, saying the impact caused the Mexican forward to twist his ankle.
“Then tonight in the 37th minute there is the clear penalty that you can’t see. And we don’t talk about contact, it’s contact. When it’s impact, it’s impact. Tonight there was an impact, because it twisted his ankle.”
Napoli will now focus fully on Serie A as they look to wrap up the competition. They face a difficult match against Juventus over the weekend at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.
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