Olympiacos coach José Luis Mendilibar, speaking at the post-match press conference following the game against Barcelona, commented the referee’s decisions:
You said before the match that you get less angry these days. Tonight, were you more frustrated with the referee?
You all saw why I got angry. We were in the game, and someone took us out of it without us having done anything wrong. Someone else on the pitch made the mistakes.
Obviously, you’re referring to the referee. How much did those mistakes affect the team?
We went from being right in the game — turning 2–0 into 2–1 and making life difficult for Barcelona — to being completely out of it. We can’t understand those decisions. Perhaps, the score could have ended up differently following the 2-1, but now all anyone will see is the 6–1, and nobody will know what really happened in this match.
Did you speak to the referee at the end of the match?
I didn’t want to speak to the referee. I spoke with the fourth official, who behaved well. But no matter how much you talk to him, it doesn’t matter if you don’t speak to the main referee — and I didn’t want to, in case he made another bad decision against me. Hezze’s red card was a crazy decision, while in the penalty incident, Tzolakis had pulled his arms back to avoid contact, and yet a penalty was given.
