The eccentric Italian, despite his sympathies, sided with common sense
Ex-forward Italian national team Mario Balotelli commented on the sensational episode in the endgame of the qualifying match Euro 2024 between Ukrainian national team and his national team.
“If they hadn’t assigned me one, I would have gone crazy,” SuperMario said about the scandalous situation with an ignored violation on Mikhail Mudrik.
“It’s definitely a penalty. “Everything is fine, we are going to the European Championships, but let’s think about one thing: if the opposite happened, what would our reaction be?”
“It’s a penalty. Dot. Mudryk got ahead of Cristante and it was a foul. Point. There is no doubt about it, despite the fact that Donnarumma would have taken it anyway,” concluded striker Adana Demirspor.
Let us remind you that the Ukrainian national team in the final match of the group stage of Euro 2024 qualification was unable to win the victory it needed over Italy. The Ukrainians ended the nominally home match, which took place in Leverkusen, in a draw – 0:0.
One of the key moments of the match happened already in stoppage time: Brian Cristante brought down Mikhail Mudryk in his own penalty area, but neither the main referee nor the VAR saw any violation in this episode on the part of the Italian.
After the match, many experts and football personalities agreed that Ukraine deserved to take a penalty in that episode. Among those who recognized this were, in particular, Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis, and even Italian national team goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Sergei Rebrov’s team will now compete for access to Euro 2024 in the Nations League playoffs. The blue-and-yellows will be waiting for the “final four” of division A or division B – this will be decided by a draw.
If they get into the playoffs of Division B, the Ukrainian team’s opponents will be Bosnia and Herzegovina and Israel, as well as Finland or Iceland. If we get into the playoffs of Division A, our team will have to compete first with Wales, and then with someone from the Poland-Estonia pair.
Source: Sportarena
I am Ben Stock and I work in Athletistic as an author. My specialty is covering football news and other related topics. I have been writing for this website since the past 2 years, crafting compelling stories with the latest updates in the sports world. My articles have gained widespread appreciation amongst readers due to their accuracy and depth of research.
