Buffon slams referee for 'not showing character'

Juventus' legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon came down heavily on referee Michael Oliver for awarding the late penalty that knocked the Italian football champions out of the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday night.

Juventus on Wednesday dramatically erased a three-goal deficit from the first leg against Real Madrid before Medhi Benatia was adjudged to have brought down Lucas Vazquez who just had keeper Buffon to beat near the six-yard box.

"The penalty? I say this: it happens that the referee makes a mistake, it's not a problem in the slightest," Buffon was quoted as saying by espnfc after the game.

"But a professional who referees a game like this has got to be prepared, first of all to know what happened in the first leg. Secondly, he has got to know that to referee games like these, in which there are some of the top players in world football, Cristiano Ronaldo, Keylor Navas, (Giorgio) Chiellini and so on -- you have got to have a sensitivity that every human must possess," he said.

Buffon was given the marching orders for protesting the decision in the face of the English referee while Real's Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo converted the penalty in the 98th minute to put his side through 4-3 on aggregate.

"He, with those two decisions at the end, demonstrated that he is a killer, an animal, because only somebody who has a rubbish bin in the place of a heart can make decisions like these," lambasted Buffon.

"On top of that, if you don't have the character to walk on a pitch like this in a stadium like this, you can sit in the stands with your wife, your kids, drinking your Sprite and eating crisps.

"You cannot ruin the dreams of a team. I could've told the referee anything at that moment, but he had to understand the degree of the disaster he was creating," he said.

Juventus president Andrea Agnelli called for the addition of video assistant referees and blamed UEFA for assigning referees who "are against Italian clubs".

Buffon, not going that far, reiterated that referees should recognise game situations.

"It's an issue of sensitivity," he said. "It means you don't know where you are, what teams are facing off, what players are involved. It means you've understood absolutely s---.

"It disappointed me to leave the boys with 10 men, but I said objectively Real Madrid deserved the victory, we shake their hands and move on," he added.

Juventus will now turn their attention to the Italian Serie A where they are holding on to their slim lead over Napoli.

"We will be furious when stepping on to the pitch in Serie A this weekend," Buffon said.

--IANS

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