Thomas Tuchel accused the referee of laughing and joking with Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti at full-time of his side’s devastating defeat in the Spanish capital, with the Chelsea head coach expressing his “disappointment” with the official’s conduct.
Tuchel said that the final whistle, after an epic contest at the Santiago Bernabeu, was the “wrong time” for Polish referee Szymon Marciniak to be joking with the Real manager.
“I was disappointed that the referee had a good time with Carlo,” said Tuchel. “When I wanted to go and say thank you, he was smiling and laughing with the opponent’s coach.
“I think this is the very wrong time to do this after the final whistle, 126 minutes of a team giving their heart. When you go and see a referee smiling and laughing with the other coach, it is bad timing. I told him this.”
The Chelsea head coach also questioned whether referees have the “courage” to make big decisions against Real, after Marcos Alonso’s second-half goal was disallowed for handball following a Var review.
“Sometime now maybe I get problems,” Tuchel said. “If you play against Real Madrid, you can maybe not expect that everybody has the courage.
“I felt little decisions also in the first leg and the second leg today as well [went against us]. I did not see the goal, but I told him I’m super disappointed that he does not come out and check it on his own.
“In a match like this where you have a certain line to whistle, you should stay the boss and not give decisions like this to somebody in a chair who is isolated from the atmosphere.
“The referee has a certain style, things he allows and doesn’t allow, he follows a certain line so I think he should stay in charge and check it on his own, then he could also explain it better.”
‘We are a special team’
Tuchel said his team were “unlucky” to lose the tie but insisted there would be no regrets for him or his players. Chelsea won 3-2 on the night but were ultimately undone by more brilliance from Karim Benzema, who scored a hat-trick in the first leg and headed the decisive goal here.
“We have to reduce our amount of mistakes and we could not reduce them to a minimum over the two legs,” said Tuchel. “We had two crucial ball losses. There are no regrets. These are the kind of defeats you can take with pride as a sportsman.
“We were unlucky. That is why we are disappointed. We got beaten by individual quality. We made two mistakes, two ball losses. We deserved to go through after this match today but it was not meant to be.
“We were very disciplined on the ball and very active and invested off the ball. We showed courage and from there we showed our quality. This is the right way to do it. If we have this kind of effort, we are a special team.”
Meanwhile, Ancelotti credited the “magic” of the Bernabeu for his side’s comeback, while Luka Modric admitted that his team were “dead” until the 80th minute, when the Croatian created a spectacular goal for Rodrygo.
