If OL clearly beat Valenciennes (3-0) on Tuesday evening in the Coupe de France semi-final, the meeting was marked by several contentious refereeing decisions at 0-0. Enough to enrage VAFC striker Anthony Knockaert after the match.
Eyes red. Disappointment, frustration, and a little anger, it seems. While OL beat Valenciennes (3-0) on Tuesday evening in the Coupe de France semi-final, the meeting was marked by several contentious refereeing decisions at 0-0. Notably a goal refused to Doucouré and the Valenciennois (38th) for a foul by Knockaert earlier in the action, and then this penalty awarded to Lacazette and the Lyonnais at the very start of the second half (48th), to open the scoring .
Also, after the meeting, it was an angry Anthony Knockaert who appeared at the microphone of the broadcaster BeIN Sports. “It’s hard to find the words. We had a first half that matched everything except the bottom of Ligue 2. I’m proud of the players and everyone. It’s hard. I thought that we were going to do it,” he first said.
>>> Relive OL-Valenciennes
“They should ask themselves questions at the refereeing level”
Before moving on to Stéphanie Frappart’s decisions: “The penalty, I haven’t seen the images but it seems very light to me. I do the same thing a minute before, I throw myself at the defender, and she doesn’t whistle not. There it’s in our area, she whistles. Is it because it’s a big club? I don’t know. I’m weighing my words. They can suspend me if they want, I I don’t care because it’s hard. It’s hard to accept when you’re last in Ligue 2 and you see a match scenario like that.” And to conclude: “They should ask themselves questions, I think, at the level of arbitration.”
Appearing at a press conference a few minutes later, his trainer Ahmed Kantari was less vehement, but also delivered his message. “You know my opinion,” slipped the technician. “We score a goal (disallowed), there is no fault. They score a goal on a penalty while it is Lacazette who impales himself on my defender… I don’t want to knock on the refereeing, Everyone will take their responsibilities, but when we see the first half we played, we say to ourselves that this aspect of the game weighed a lot in the balance. But I don’t want to let the anger overwhelm me. I rather want to retain some pride.”