If we watch at the plays in detail:
- Handballs: there were 4 of them inside the areas (2 for each team), and I think that if we stick to the rules, it's totally subjective to the ref. At least he was coherent and none was called. Would have been even worse if one was called and not the other ones. In my oppinion, we should return to objective rules: if it touches the arm/hand and is not sticked to the body, it's a hand. That would be much easier than all this "voluntary act" thing which makes it chaotic and depends on the criteria of each referee.
- In my oppinion, the penalty to Neymar is as blatant as the one to Di Maria, both are clear penalties. The PSG defenders tries to obstruct Neymar as he falls, without a chance to play the ball. Neymar is smart enough to change his direction and force contact. This is a classic for attackers. Some people say "Neymar could have changed his direction to avoid contact". Yes, of course, loosing the advantage to play the ball, but that's precisely the point: in football, you can't obstruct someone's path if you're not going to play the ball. Was the PSG defender going to play the ball? No. Did he extend his fall to obstruct Neymar? Totally. Was he avoiding that Neymar took advantage of the situation without the chance of playing the ball? Totally. Did Neymar take advantage of it? Sure. That's what's football about. So Definitely a pen to me. If someone slips and falls on another player, it's also a penalty, so this is the same scenario.
- Di Maria penalty was very clear, but I say that after watching it on tv. I was at the stadium guys, and watching it live, just in front of me, I couldn't tell exactly what happened, because Di Maria shot the ball and the contact was difficult to assess at first. It's a big mistake by the referee, though, one that would have totally changed the game at that point. But I can understand why he didn't see it, because neither I thought of it as a penalty until I watched it on tv. There should be a way to avoid this mistakes, and the use of technology would have been easy in this case. It is much needed.
- To me the Suarez penalty shouldn't be called, mainly because he exagerates the contact and contrary to the Neymar play, in no way it affects the play. Live at the stadium, again, I couldn't tell if it was or it wasn't. But being Suarez, who has a shameful tradition of playacting, I would think it was nothing, as it was. Big mistake.
- Clearly those 2 mistakes favoured us a lot (and 100% probable we were out). But I would like to point out other things that people tends to consider irrelevant. In the first half there were 2 plays in which Neymar and Messi were left on dangerous 2 vs 2 on two counters, and the ref cut the play due to a previous foul, not giving the advantage rule. I know it's not as important or as spectacular as a penalty play, but Messi and Neymar 2 vs 2 with open space ahead...
People ignore those things, but those are also blatant mistakes of the referee. I say this because in my oppinion the ref took wrong decisions again and agian for both teams during the whole game, it's only at the end that 2 of those mistakes are seen as more relevant, but Meunier did 5 harsh tackles to Neymar in the first half without seeing a yellow. Those things also impact the game, but are not regarded as critical, but who knows what could have happened.
At the end of the day, I think the result was unfair for PSG, but at the same time they digged their own grave by acting cowardly and playing stupidly deffensive against the poorest Barcelona in a decade.
At the end of the day the ref was terrible and favoured us, but a lot of times they favour the other team. It's a pitty that we don't use technology to soften this.
PS: I agree with Gerd about giving a penalty and also a yellow for the attacker on some instances, it's coherent with what happens sometimes. And I'm totally in favour of banning divers harshly, the same way that violent tackles should be banned harshly as well, even after the match. All those diving and all those stupidly violent tackles would stop quickly.
