By Alfredo Echenique Lugo
18 Jul 2024, 08:44 AM EDT
Last Sunday, Euro 2024 came to an end, leaving Spain as the tournament champion, thus winning its fourth continental tournament and becoming the biggest winner of the competition.
During the tournament there were several refereeing controversies and one of them was precisely with Spain as the protagonist. In the quarter-final match against Germany there was a handball in the area by Marc Cucurella, which was not called as a penalty due to an alleged offside position before the play.
However, the Germans seem to remain outraged by this bad refereeing decision and recently one of the national team’s stars, Toni Kroos, broke his silence and commented on this controversial play during the podcast ‘Even badly it hurts’which he shares with his brother Felix.
“I have been holding back until today, even in the last podcast we said we would not talk about it. I was angry when I saw him after the game.” Kroos took a deep breath and added, visibly annoyed: “Let’s leave it there.”
Kroos clarified that he was not close to the play at the time. Therefore he could not see it live, but by watching the replay he was able to draw his own conclusions.
“I couldn’t assess the situation. I have to say that I didn’t see it clearly during the match. I wasn’t in a good position to see that it was a fairly clear hand,” he commented.
But with that said, the midfielder ended up breaking his silence on the play of that match, accusing the English referee Anthony Taylor of acting badly in this play.
“I looked at the referee. He thought he didn’t need to review it and the assistant in the VAR thought the same and made him understand that it wasn’t necessary to review it, that it wasn’t a handball. I think he should have at least reviewed it,” explained the now ex-German footballer.
And Kroos seems to be sure of the play. He later said that if Taylor went to the VAR to review the play, he would end up marking the penalty in favor of the Germans.
“I think the problem was that I knew that if I reviewed it I would have to give it. And I felt that I didn’t want to give it away in a game like that,” Kroos said.
Keep reading:
Cucurella’s handball inside the area in Spain’s victory over Germany
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