The ref takes centre stage for all the wrong reasons
On a night when Celtic were hoping to progress further in the Champions League they came up against two tough opponents, Italian Champions Juventus and Spanish referee Alberto Undiano Malllenco. Going up against one of these opponents is hard enough but taking them both on and Neil Lennon's side really didn't have a chance.
As a football fan I have to say I was looking forward to this and when the Italians took an early lead Celtic just had to attack to have any chance at all. That's exactly what they did with wave after wave and corner after corner. Now I wouldn't say I'd score ten out of ten in a referee's test and I doubt most of us would but there was some blatent fouling going on both before and during the corner kicks.
"I thought he was poor," Lennon told Sky Sports. "I thought he was very pro-Juventus. I was disappointed with his performance to say the least."
"It's not rugby we're playing, it's soccer," said the Celtic manager. "I pointed it out to the referee at half-time in the tunnel area but he just waved me away. I made it clear to the players to flag it up to the referee in the second half, but he ignored our requests. They were being fouled, manhandled. Every time one of my players tried to move he was held. He should have given a penalty on at least two occasions.
"I'd like to know what the interpretation of the rules are in Italy or Spain, because it's blatantly different to what they are in Britain from what I've seen tonight. They were fouling on every opportunity and he was staring right at it. So are the rules different in Spain? Because, on that showing, they must be."
The chances are that Lennon will get in trouble for his outburst but I don't think he should; he only said what others were thinking. It's hard to believe that this official has been on the FIFA list since 2007, surely they must look into this! The sad thing is as we all know they won't, they'll fine or ban the man that has told the truth and that will be the end of it.
This should not deflect on a very good Juventus side that killed Celtic off with two late goals to make it three nil and make the two legged game all but over.
But if the referee had a pair the score could and probably would have been different but for poor Celtic the referee gave them a kick in the balls.