Sour afternoon for Antwerp. 1-0 against Charleroi, which left the Old Man unable to capitalize on missteps by Racing Genk and Club Brugge. After that there was – for the umpteenth time – a lot to do around a penalty phase.
Koffi clumsily let go of the ball, but Tchatchoua intervened, hand or not, to prevent Balikwisha from doing so. No penalty according to referee Verboomen, but for VAR Lothar D’hondt. Van Bommel already thought it was a penalty and says it’s a shame that there has to be another discussion.
“Because if you are recalled as a referee by VAR, that’s because you made a big mistake, isn’t it?” said the Antwerp coach. “But even then, it’s interpretation. One finds the penalty, the other doesn’t. And the referee obviously didn’t think so. Of course you get angry about that. See, if it hadn’t also been a VAR penalty, you obviously wouldn’t have this controversy. That’s the way it is now and that’s a shame.”
“We did well except for one element,” said Mark van Bommel. “Because when you create so many chances, you always have to win this match. After the break I counted 6, 7 big chances. If you don’t score, you can’t win. Is that due to Janssen’s absence? Of course I would have liked to have had Vincent with me. But it’s no guarantee that we would have won with him. Although the chance was of course greater.”
Source : HLN