The English press left Hayes in his fury

FC Barcelona qualified for a fifth Women’s Champions League final, fourth in a row, with a convincing victory at Stamford Bridge (0-2) against a Chelsea team that won 0-1 in the semi-final first leg at Montjuïc. The fury of the historic ‘blue’ coach, Emma Hayes, who dreams of saying goodbye to her position after 12 years of winning the only title she has missed, has led her to emulate José Mourinho and say it is the ” worst refereeing decision in the history of the Women’s Champions”, referring to the dismissal for the double warning of their player Kadeisha Buchanan and the subsequent penalty meted out to Aitana Bonmatí. In general, the English press chose to highlight in their narratives that Chelsea closed the gap in football with respect to the current champions and the excitement generated by this match, which translated into the biggest entrance in history at Stamford Bridge for a women’s soccer match, with 39,398 spectators. As to controversy in arbitration, with certain exceptions, there is no controversy.

The glass remembered that “Before Chelsea’s defense was thrown out, Barça had tied the tie thanks to a wonderful goal from Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmati.” This is how he described the scene that led to the second yellow card Buchanan: “He was ejected after putting his foot on Patri Guijarro’s ankle while looking for a loose ball in the center circle, which led referee Iuliana Demetrescu to show him a second yellow card without hesitation.” His analysis of the penalty was also not particularly complaining: “Then came the penalty decision, Jess Carter elbows Bonmati in the backwho fell for Lawrence. VAR checked and found no problem with the decision.”

The day spoke in a similar tone about this matter. The most important thing is to point out the temporal proximity in which Buchanan saw the two cards that left Chelsea in the bottom: “Buchanan was cautioned twice in four minutes by referee Iuliana Demetrescu”. “Buchanan’s exit was followed by penalty drama in the 74th minute after Bonmatí fell in the box following a collision with Blues defenders Ashley Lawrence and Jess Carter. A VAR check confirmed Demetrescu’s decision to award penalty converted by Fridolina Rolfo”. Without being particularly critical, criticizes Coach Hayes for “rolling the dice too late” including the entry of forward Aggie Beever-Jones for Leupolz.”

Guardian This is the most acidic thing about arbitration. “Buchanan received two very soft yellow cards leaving Chelsea with ten players and then Iuliana Demetrescu gave a questionable penalty”. In any case, he did not exclude that there was no violation: “Aitana Bonmatíwho accused Chelsea of ​​being dirty in the first leg, He easily fell to the spot, but it wasn’t an obvious enough mistake for VAR to correct the decision of the arbitration.”