Brendan Rodgers not pleased with Diego Simeone during their defeats against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League in Spain.
Celtic’s Manager, Brendan Rodgers, expressed strong displeasure at the behavior of Atletico Madrid’s head coach, Diego Simeone, and his staff during a decisive 6-0 loss in the Champions League last night.
In a match marked by controversy, Celtic’s Japanese sensation, Daizen Maeda, saw his yellow card escalated to a red by VAR following a 50-50 challenge with Mario Hermoso, who sustained an injury in the incident.
Rodgers initially supported the referee’s decision, but tempers flared when Simeone and a significant portion of his coaching staff stormed into the technical area to voice their objections. The confrontation left Rodgers notably frustrated.
He said: “They will play the game, they are obviously trying to get our player sent off.
“Listen, it’s still up to the ref. You come away in Europe and a place like this where it’s an emotional stadium, everyone will add pressure.
“The ref saw it in game time and didn’t deem it worthy of anything so serious, but it just feels like a computer game now, football. So many visits to the screen, so many influences in the game.
“As time has gone on you see the influence of VAR and the difficulties referees have. There’s a lot of judgements going on away from the field.
“It’s not so much the technology, but how it is implemented. It’s not something I enjoy.
“When it first came out I was very much wanting to support it and hoped it would improve the game, because I think everyone thought the utopia of VAR would mean we would lose all these bad decisions.
“But you could argue there’s even more now. There’s a good percentage where it just doesn’t feel right in the game.”
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