The Italy under-21 side were left absolutely furious with the referee during their match against France after their would-be last-minute equaliser was not given despite the ball seemingly crossing the line.
What happened between Italy U21s and France?
This week, the European Under-21 Championship began in Romania and Georgia and the Azzurrini played their first game on Thursday night.
Taking on a talented French team, the Italians initially fell behind when Arnaud Kalimuendo opened the scoring after just 22 minutes.
Still, they were back level before halftime thanks to Pietro Pellegri who headed in a free kick from Newcastle transfer target Sandro Tonali.
After the break, though, Les Bleus restored their lead when Tottenham’s Destiny Udogie lost the ball cheaply inside his own box, allowing Bradley Barcola to fire in what turned out to be the winner.
However, the game probably should have ended 2-2 when Raoul Bellanova had a header cleared off the line by French defender Castello Lukeba.
In reality, it looks as though the ball actually hit the post and then crossed the line before being cleared, but without VAR in use or any goalline technology, the goal was not given.
You can see an image of the incident shared on Twitter below.
While a full replay was uploaded to Reddit.
Understandably the Italian players were incensed, protesting widely with the referee. While their manager Paolo Nicolato proved how enraged he was after the game with some fiery comments.
Indeed, the Italian coach told RAI Sport, as per Football Italia: “Honestly, I struggle to talk about the game today.
“It’s not possible to see refereeing like this and I have the impression it affected the result far too much. We were also unlucky, even if we lost to a great team.
“It was a good performance, we deserved more.”
Fans on social media were equally as baffled. Here are some of the best Twitter reactions…
One fan even pointed out the ball may have then been cleared with the use of a hand too.
