The UEFA Youth League last night saw some drama as Chelsea defeated Valencia on penalties to go through to the quarter-finals of the tournament. The furore however, was caused by the first penalty taken by Valencia, which went inside the goal and hit the stanchion inside and came back out, making people think that it scraped the inside of the post and came out.
The referees did not award the goal because they did not see the ball go into the goal and only saw it coming out, and assumed that it hit the post. Replays showed that the ball had clearly gone in and that it should have been given as a goal.
The penalty taker, Alberto Gil, alongwith Valencia goalkeeper Antonio Sivera and his teammates, voiced their protests with the referee Adrien Jaccottet and his assistants but to no avail, as they refused to acknowledge any of their arguments and instead ordered them to continue with the penalty shootout.
Valencia converted the remainder of their penalties, while defending champions Chelsea too converted all 5 of their penalties through Charlie Colkett, Mason Mount, Kyle Scott, Kasey Palmer and Tammy Abraham. The Londoners will face either Lyon or Ajax in the next round. The match had ended 1-1 after normal time.
The team from Spain though, were distraught, and continued protesting even after the result was officially declared, with their coaching staff joining in the protests. Later in the day, they also announced that they will be filing an official protest with UEFA.
The club said, “Valencia wish to inform all our fans that the club will present a written protest in relation to the refereeing decision to disallow a goal for our team in the penalty shoot-out of the UEFA Youth League game against Chelsea.
“We trust that UEFA will give an appropriate response at the level required by the situation, after it has had the opportunity to analyse our appeal. Finally, Valencia wish to thank the sportsmanship of Chelsea for having recognised that the disallowed penalty had gone in.”
Valencia's senior team manager Gary Neville, striker Paco Alcacer and club legend Miguel Angel Angulo also expressed outrage over the incident.
