Antonio Conte was a picture of calm – until Var intervened
Conte #Conte
“Control yourself,” were the words pumping through powerful speakers after the final whistle, a message delivered via 15-year-old pop song. By then it was too late for Antonio Conte, heading down the tunnel in stoppage time after being shown a red card. Perhaps he should start listening to Kids by MGMT before games.
He spent much of this slow-burning 1-1 draw in a state of unusual impassivity, recognising perhaps that when a team looks as wobbly as his Spurs it is not the time for managerial histrionics. They had laboured horribly in the first half against Sporting Lisbon, trailing 1-0 at the break.
The boos came after one Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg hoof which landed straight in Sporting goalkeeper Adan’s hands, then again after a promising free kick was squandered short and finished with Son Heung-min falling over. He looked like he would rather be doing another round of South Korean military service.
All change in the second half. Sporting manager Ruben Amorim was frequently unable to watch, crouched in a sort of depressed Thinker pose, eyes fixated on the Desso GrassMaster hybrid turf.
Spurs toiled their way back to parity then appeared to win it at the death when the entire team aside from Hugo Lloris poured forward, knowing it would be their last attack. Harry Kane scored and brought the house down.
Here was the Conte we had anticipated, the man whose expected growl stat before any game is always double figures. As he celebrated Kane’s apparent winner he dived directly into his assistant’s chest, his entire body an expression of joyful release.
Then the stadium was plunged into the void. For all of the incredibly tedious Var controversies and the incredibly tedious hand-wringing about those controversies, it cannot be denied that Var has added a new level of highly confected drama to football.
This may not be to your taste, just as many of us would sooner eat glass than watch Love Island, but it is novel. After the stadium settled it became clear that the players had been still for too long. Something was up. The Var check was announced to groans. Then during a long wait for closure (where are they communicating with? Jupiter?) there was that new noise, the tense extended Var check noise. A sort of trebly hum which is part hope, part terror part mania.
When it finally arrived the decision did not go Tottenham’s way. Emerson Royal was judged offside when heading back for Kane. Conte screamed at the officials, he breached the sacred limits of his technical area, he wandered furiously onto the pitch. He was sent off, becoming the only person shown a red card in both the Premier League and Champions League this season. Not bad for a manager.
At least he didn’t miss much. The ball was in play for 0.1 seconds after Sporting took the resulting free kick. At the game’s conclusion Eric Dier barked at unhelpfuly smirking referee Danny Makkelie: “It went backwards,” referring to Royal’s header to Kane. No one knows the rules of football, not really. They are passed down from generation to generation in a sort of foggy mess of cliché, a drunk history of laws and regulations.
The direction the ball travels has never been relevant to offside, it is the position of the player receiving the pass which matters, his entire body must be behind it when it is played. Kane’s may not have been, but it was irrelevant if the offence was indeed Royal’s. We may never know. A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an assistant’s flag.
After the game Conte answered one question at length then walked out of his own press conference before he said or did something else he would regret. Sporting manager Amorim spoke excellent if slightly contradictory English. Asked what he thought of Var, he accidentally summed it up perfectly. “I like it because it’s fair. Most of the time. I know that there’s a lot of problems sometimes. But for me, it’s good.”
By Sam Wallace
Antonio Conte launched a scathing attack on the standard of refereeing in the Champions League, questioning whether Uefa officials had been “honest” after his team were denied an injury-time winner and the Italian was dismissed in the aftermath.
Conte would later say that the Var officials had made a mistake. In the protests afterwards, he was sent off but it was his comments about Uefa referees that could attract disciplinary action.
Conte will be banned from the touchline when Spurs face Marseille on Tuesday. A draw will be enough for them to qualify from Group D which is so finely balanced that any of the four including Eintracht Frankfurt and Sporting can reach the knockout round with wins on the final matchday. Rodrigo Bentancur scored a second half equaliser for Spurs after their former player Marcus Edwards had given Sporting the lead.
In his post-match press conference, Conte said: “Sometimes you can accept this situation. I don’t see honesty in this type of situation [this game]. When I don’t see this, I become really, really upset.”
He said to BT Sport on his sending off: “The red card – all the people come inside after the decision to disallow and then they come to give me a red card because I’m the most popular person on the pitch.”
Speaking about the red card in his press conference he said: “I think there are moments when maybe you can be a bit intelligent and understand he has just disallowed a regular goal because the goal was regular. The ball is in front of Kane and then the Var – you know that I don’t comment on the referee’s decision – but with the Var, between the Premier League and the Champions League, we are not so lucky. Now we are the only team that repeated a penalty [had to take a penalty twice, when Leicester retook their spot-kick].”
He added: I think we are not so lucky with Var. It creates a lot of damage. I would like to see if they can take this kind of decision with a top team in an important game. I would like to see if Var is so brave to take that decision. Because the ball is in front of Kane. I’m sorry but I’m really upset.”
Speaking to BT Sport earlier he had questioned the accuracy of the lines drawn on the screen by Var officials. He said: “I think the ball was in front of Kane and the goal is a goal. I don’t understand the line they put [on the screen]. It is very difficult to comment on this decision. Var is doing a lot of damage. I want to see if in another stadium of a big team if they are ready to disallow this type of goal. I’d like to know this.
“A lot of injustice. I don’t like this type of situation. I see not positive things. The second half was positive and we played with a great intensity. We deserved to win but we know what happened. I don’t understand why we have to get something from the next game when we can finish the qualification in this game. When you invent this type of situation, you create a lot of damage of the club. Also, problems.”
Matt Doherty said that the Spurs players did not understand the decision. He said: “I think you can see from the celebrations we thought we won it. I don’t really know what happened at the end. I thought because it went backwards and hit a defender it was a different phase of play. I’ll have to look at the rule book. A few of us don’t have a clue what happened.
“If we’re being honest we didn’t play that well. They nullified us in the first half and deserved to be ahead. We’re top of the group. It’s not how we wanted the night to go but it’s still in our hands.”
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