FOOTBALL: Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti furious with Girona’s ‘contrived’ penalty

Car­lo Ancelot­ti said it was an ‘invent­ed’ penal­ty that gave Real Madrid three points in their 1–1 draw against Girona.

Ten min­utes lat­er, Girona won a penal­ty after Mar­co Asen­sio was ruled to have han­dled the ball inside the area.

Giron­a’s Cris­t­ian Stu­ani scored a penal­ty and Rodri­go was dis­al­lowed for a sec­ond-half foul on goal­keep­er Paulo Gaz­zani­ga, end­ing Madrid in a draw, just a point behind lead­ers Barcelona.

“I don’t like to talk about these things, but today I will,” Ancelot­ti said at his post-match press con­fer­ence when asked about penal­ties and dis­al­lowed goals. The “first sit­u­a­tion” is quite clear. [Asen­sio] did­n’t touch the ball with his hand. I’ve talked to I touched it with my chest”

“His left hand is in a strange posi­tion and could be sus­pect­ed if he touched the ball with his hand. But he did­n’t. They made it up. Sec­ond, more. It’s debatable.[Gazzaniga] was­n’t in full con­trol [of the ball].You can com­ment on that, or you don’t.What sur­prised me was the penalties.”

“Mar­co [Asen­sio] said he hit him in the chest and then in his hand,” said goal­keep­er Thibaut Cour­tois. “The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, after a rebound like that, I don’t think it’s hand­ball. I don’t think it was in the Cham­pi­ons League. Today it was called hand­ball. It’s strange. Some­times it’s hand­ball, Some­times it’s not, I don’t know, but we also need to look at ourselves.

The draw comes on the heels of Madrid’s first defeat of the sea­son, a 3–2 away defeat to RB Leipzig in the Cham­pi­ons League at midweek.

Last year’s Cham­pi­ons League and La Liga win­ners have a chance to secure top spot in Group F when they host Celtic on Wednes­day. He then plays two La Liga match­es against Rayo Val­le­cano and Cádiz before the World Cup break.

“It was a dif­fi­cult match, but it’s nor­mal at this time of year,” said Ancelot­ti. I was mov­ing towards my “goal”. And lost a point with “no penalty”.