When can a chest be mistaken for a hand?
a) In the midst of a steamy Kama Sutra led romp?
or
b) In the 73rd minute of a cup final between Sporting and Benfica?
I’ll grant you that a) is an outside possibility, but the answer last night turned out to be b) as Sporting were not just robbed but completely humiliated by yet another atrocious decision by a Portuguese referee.
Having taken a 1-0 lead early in the second half after an adroit finish by the extremely promising Bruno Pereirinha, Sporting had gone on to control the game. If anything was going to happen the Lions were going to sew it up as their midfield diamond totally dominated the centre of the park.
Yet on 73 minutes as Benfica’s Di Maria showed off his questionable skills by playing the ball straight into Pedro Silva’s chest, the referee already had his mind on that evening’s screening of “The Masked Magician” on Portuguese TV and imagined an invisible hand.
But then invisible limbs are hardly a rarity here in Portugal as Benfica’s Yebda found out when he was adjudged to have tripped Lisandro in February’s clash with Porto.
As a result of this particular illusion Silva was given his second yellow card and Benfica a penalty, which Reyes went on to put away. The 10 men of Sporting then lost some of their grip on the game as their three man midfield maintained the status quo but looked incapable of doing little else.
Refereeing problems
It’s completely outrageous that not only in poxy league fixtures but in huge games between the league’s top teams and in cup finals referees consistently make scandalous decisions.
The nature of these decisions can’t help but make one hark back to the events of May 2008 when five Portuguese referees were found guilty of corruption.
When the linesman in yesterday night’s game had a much better view of the “handball” and is alleged to have told the ref that it wasn’t a penalty, you have to wonder why on earth it was given.
But then you realise that the referee in questions is one Lucílio Baptista, the possessor of a far from exemplary record. Let worldreferee.com tell us more:
“If a ref is really good, he gets to the top: the Champions League and even on to the continental and World Cup tournaments. Premier list referee Lucílio Baptista got as far as two matches in the European Cup in 2004 in his own country. Then something must have gone wrong.”
What exactly went wrong? Let’s find out:
“One of his [16] Champions League matches was in 2005 when Arsenal beat FC Thun 0-1 with a penalty in the 88th minute. Two Thun goals were ruled out for off-side, one Thun player got sent off with a direct red card and Baptista showed six more yellow cards.
“Was that his worst match? Or was it the Euro 2008 qualifier between Cyprus and Ireland (5-2 !) where the Portuguese showed seven yellow cards?
“Whatever happened, Baptista was demoted and is back to officiating UEFA cup matches for a while.”
And on top of that we are presented with his officiating of the game between Boavista and Benfica last season.
Boavista were sent down last season for their part in the refereeing corruption scandal, and from the evidence of their game with Benfica it looks as though Baptista was a possible beneficiary of some of that dirty money.
Yet he’s still working as a referee today and adding even more injustices to his CV.
Aftermath
Benfica can’t be happy with the nature of their totally undeserved victory and their fans are just as outraged with Baptista’s decision as Sporting’s are.
This is only the second season of the Carlsberg Cup, the Portuguese equivalent of the Carling Cup, and Sporting have now lost both finals 3-2 on penalties. However, the way that this one happened was much crueller and could see Paulo Bento out of a job come the summer.
But it’s not just the potential lack of silverware and the 12-1 pummelling by Bayern that will enrage his employers. It's the way he almost wills these things to happen.
As yesterday’s game finished 1-1 and went straight from normal time to penalties, Bento decided to withdraw Pereirinha, the scorer of a fine goal and one of the game’s best players, and Liedson, Sporting’s top scorer.
He replaced them with bench-warmer Romagnioli and the beyond useless Postiga. With Vukčević having already come off to make way for a defender after Silva’s red card this unnecessarily reduced his team’s penalty-scoring potential even further.
Romagnioli did manage to put away the first penalty, but unsurprisingly Postiga missed the crucial last one.
And in one final bitter twist it was the former Sporting player Carlos Martins who then stepped up to win it for Benfica.
Yet the matter of the scorer is far from just ironic. It is symptomatic of another weakness in Bento’s managerial abilities.
It was apparently down to fraught relations with Bento that Martins ended up leaving Sporting, and similar personal issues have seen the potential match winner Miguel Veloso frozen out of the Sporting side in recent months.
Bento must know that with Veloso in the side Sporting are undoubtedly stronger, yet his personal grudges will see them miss out on yet another league title.
Just as Pedro Silva threw his runners-up medal away immediately after receiving it, Bento could be as easily dispatched come May.