i think we talked about the ref way too much... and without good cause also. it's obvious there's not a secret masterplan to help barça advance in the competition at uefa headquarters. the mere idea is ridiculous, but anyway, even if we were to consider the possibility, the 1st leg of this double matchup should be enough to erase our doubts. barça were denied clear penalty in milano (the abbiati-sanchez contact) and if there were some sort of a major european conspiracy to help barça, the game in milan would have ended 0-1 (wich would have made things much easier for the blaugranas). and that was about the crazy conspiration theories. now onto the penalty itself.
8 times out ot 10 that kind of contact doesn't get u a penalty. so the obvious conclusion would be: either that penalty should have not been given or we should expect more consistancy in theese sort of situation. at first glance, this argument might make perfect sense... but i don't agree with such conclusion.
the fact that most of the times such fouls don't lead to a penalty (wich is a good thing btw) doesn't make it fair to pull your opponent's shirt inside the box. the book of rules says that's a penalty... logic says that's a penalty... and if a player of yours misses a scoring chance because one of his opponents was pulling his shirt inside the box, u're gonna scream for a penalty, so there's really little margin for discussion here.
at this point some might say "okay, but at least give me some consistancy and make the same call every time a shirt gets pulled inside the box!".
but such an argument is a lot less logic than it might sound. first of, most of the times this kind of contacts don't even get noticed by the ref (it would be impossible for the ref to spot in real time every unusual movement of the players' shirts)...... and, more importantly, even if that would be possible, even if the refs were infallible gods who could spot every shirt pulled at every free kick or corner, consistancy isn't really something u would want in this situation. because we're all well aware that in theese cases "consistancy" would lead to 5, 6 penalties given for every single match. that means that every single game would be conpletely ruined, every competition would be compromised, the league table results would lose whatever meaning they have and the football played on the pitch aswell as the tactical strategies picked by the coaches would become absolutely irrelevant. consistancy would have tragic consequences for football (in this specific case).
so what you're left with? you're left with exactly what happened on the pitch. every once in a while the ref notices a shirt pulled and makes his call. and u absolutely hate it when it happens to your team, because u think this is extremely unfair....... but when u think about it, as horrible as it is, this still is a less unfair solution than the other 2 possible options (never calling for a penalty in this situations or always having a penalty in this situations).
so instead of being mad at the ref for making such a call, we should be mad at nesta for putting the ref in the position to make that call.
there was some sort of a pick & roll by barça there. puyol sets a pick on nesta (and yes, as ryan said, that should be a foul against barça, but it's extremely hard to spot it from the ref in real time)... teams often use this expedient to loosen up the man marking on set pieces... and when this happens, the defender has no other option than let go of the shirt, because the "pick" will make the "shirt pulling action" much easier to spot by the ref.
that was a mistake by nesta. after the match he said he did it anyway, because he thought the ref would have never given a second penalty for such a silly foul. now i can understand his logic (infact i agree with him, and i would have not given a second penalty like that), but still that's what eventually happened and u can't even blame the ref, because he followed the rules.
bottom line, it was an unappropriate call, but not a wrong one. it was unappropriate coz that was a champions league quarter final and u don't give a second penalty that easily. let it slide, let the match follow its flow and don't try and be a hero, making it all about your calls. ideally a ref should make himself invisible, leaving a mark as little as possible on the match and interfereing with the flow of the game only when that is absolutely unevitable. that clearely didn't happen here.
but, having said that, as unappropriate as that call was, it still wasn't a mistake by the ref, as he simply applied the rules. had he also applied a bit of common sense, we would have had a chance to see a much better football game.....but still that's not enough to blame the ref for the result, as barça fans have also reasons to complain about the way the ref handled some situations in the first leg.
the truth is milan didn't lose this game because of the ref. they lost it because mexes was absolutey atrocious (terrible performance, every time he touched the ball he did something stupid... he actually played a key role in every barça goal) and because both ibra and robinho made exactly the same movements for the entire match, making it extremely easy for barça's defensive line to handle them. whenever ibra was attacking the depth and trying to push the defensive line deeper, robinho should have tracked back to get rid of the marking (and more importantly, to force barça's defensive line to make a choice). whenever ibra was tracking back to find some space, robinho should have pushed forward, to attack the depth and (again) to force barça's defensive line to choose who to follow between the 2. robinho never did any of this. instead he stupidly followed ibra like a shadow, making himself completely useless.
barça basically had 2 players more on the pitch yesterday: robinho and mexes. and as much as i respect allegri (who's growing to become a fantastic coach), i just can't understand why on earth he picked robinho instead of el sharawi for this game. it just goes beyond my understanding.
3 in one week, in the words of SAF it evens` itself out in the end 
