Earlier today, we had a story covering the outrage from the Portuguese press regarding the refereeing in the Champions League clash between Manchester City and Porto.
Local newspapers all blamed Andris Treimanis for the comeback from the Premier League club, since the Dragons were winning the game until a controversial penalty was given to Pep Guardiola’s side.
It turns out that the feeling from Porto players is the same. Proof of that is the interview which Pepe gave to Brazilian outlet Esporte Interativo after the game.
When speaking of the result and their performance, the defender couldn’t leave the refereeing aside, and started by pointing out some plays for which he disagreed with the decisions.
“Apart from the help of the referee, that should be highlighted as well,” Pepe told Esporte Interativo.
“Because I think that from sending off a City player to a penalty that didn’t happen, I think that always conditions a result. Because we scored first, we even had the opportunity to make it 2-0 in the first half. But football is one of those things.”
Then Pepe was asked to give the referee a rating. We thought Portuguese newspaper A Bola had been harsh enough giving Andris Treimanis a 2 out of 10, but the Porto defender tried to make it even worse.
“Minus ten. Could it be? Does it exist? I would give him 10 minus.”
“Because we players are often highly rated by you, journalists, you could even rate our performance on the pitch. Today, unfortunately, the referee practically conditioned the game. City have a great team, City don’t need that kind of help.
“You can see that they scored the goal from a doubtful foul. They scored the first goal from a penalty that could’ve been a sending off that could completely condition the result. The third goal was their merit, as a result of our emotional lack of control. The referee in this situation always pushed us back. I think there are situations that UEFA has to see, above all with the technology that we have today, which is the VAR. Unfortunately, this is learning for us. We have to recover that point, we have to fight as we did tonight.”
