Penalty! Italian referees whistle more penalties, admonitions and expulsions. To keep TV and fans happy? (Archive photo Ansa)
ROME – "Penalty is when referee blows his whistle" warned the legendary Vujadin Boskov. We see then that in Italy, in our championship, the former black jackets love to whistle very much, perhaps too much. 88 penalties were given in Serie A in the first 19 days, more than double that in the Premier League where they were 41. Not to mention yellow cards and expulsions.
The year zero was that of the introduction of the or of the Var that you want to say. Even before there were differences in refereeing in the various leagues. Different sensitivities and different interpretations of norms and episodes. In England, for example, football has always been more physical: that is, we tend to consider regular contacts which are fouls for us. But this trend and the following gap in judgments exploded with the arrival of the Video Assistant Referee, the referee's video assistant: the Var.
In our league this technology has quickly become an integral part of the game and there is no game in which it does not intervene and in which the referee does not go to check his choices on the screen on the sideline. In Premier, always to make a parallel with the richest and most beautiful championship, in the 189 games played so far the referees have never gone to review an action on the monitor on the pitch. Never.
This explains why we have been awarded almost 90 penalties in the first leg (and the recovery of the match between Lazio and Verona postponed for the Roman Super Cup) and in Premier 41, as many as in the German Bundesliga, have yet to be played. And below our numbers are all the European level championships: 74 penalties in the Spanish Liga and 63 those in the French championship. And there is no more whistling only in the penalty area, but in all areas of the pitch and for all types of contact. Over a thousand yellow cards shown in our first leg (1,008 to be precise) and 56 red ones.
In England there were 23 red cards and 684 yellow cards, 44 reds and 975 yellow cards in Spain, 31 red card and 581 yellow cards in the Bundesliga and 45 reds and 670 yellow cards in French Ligue1. Var fly from the desire to blow the whistle and the numbers mentioned, but not cause first. Cause that instead largely resides in our football culture.
Here we simulate, always protest , we see players 'passing out' just touched and others fall even if they were tackled by a Bud Spencer in the prime of the years. And then it always protests. The players, the coaches and the presidents do it. Not to mention the fans. It protests regardless and, in this, the Var really assists our referees who at least discharge part of the responsibility for the choices on technology. With us the Var is invoked every time a player stumbles in the area and the referee does not blow the whistle, we ask for it or rather we all demand it. The English public, when Var appears on the scoreboard of the stadium, he whistles.
Source: Blitz Quotidiano