A major mistake by the Bochum goalkeeper in Freiburg first led to a foul, then to a penalty and finally to a goal. But the keeper doubts the legitimacy of the penalty – and is wrong. Even in the top game of the Bundesliga, the referee decides correctly in an important situation.
The second half of the game between SC Freiburg and VfL Bochum (1-0) could hardly have started worse for the guests: After just a few seconds, their goalkeeper Manuel Riemann missed a wide cross in his penalty area in the pouring rain when the score was 0 :0 trying to catch the ball. The keeper let the ball slide through his gloves, and when Freiburg’s Roland Sallai, who was stationed in the immediate vicinity, wanted to win it, Riemann showed himself much more gripping than just before: he held the opponent by the trousers. Sallai fell, Bochum’s Dominique Heintz hit the ball out of the penalty area – and referee Marco Fritz allowed play to continue.
It didn’t stop there, however, because video assistant Guido Winkmann intervened and recommended an on-field review to the referee. Apparently, Fritz hadn’t even noticed the Bochum keeper’s grip on Sallai’s trousers. The referee finally decided on a penalty for the hosts – and rightly so. Because even if Sallai put some theatrics into his fall: the clear and obvious holding made sure that the Freiburger had no chance to get the ball – and that too close to the goal. How Sallai fell is therefore irrelevant, even if he had stayed on his feet it would have been a foul.
Manuel Riemann didn’t want to see that, however. After the game, he admitted on his Instagram page that he made a mistake when he dropped the ball. However, he doubted the justification of the penalty whistle. Sallai jumped off “with both feet” and fell forward, although he was pulled backwards. That is “not a normal movement for a foul game”. Riemann thinks it’s “wrong to award penalties for something like this”, because otherwise there would soon have to be “penalties after every corner”. The decision was “a wrong sign for our great sport”.
It was obvious that the goalkeeper had tried to avert the worst – namely a goal – by unfair means if necessary after his mistake. With the decision not to mention this and instead to criticize opponents and referees, Riemann himself sent the wrong signal. In such situations, the rules not only “maybe give you a penalty”, as the keeper suspected, but definitely. Of course, not every little tug on the jersey in a static situation is punishable, but holding on was a major factor in Heintz getting the ball before Sallai.
The scene contained further potential for discussion. Because Sallai had touched the ball with his hand before Riemann held it. However, this handball was not punishable at first: The player’s arm position was normal for this situation, he did not enlarge his body unnaturally and was obviously intent on cushioning a possible collision with Riemann. The ball, which the goalkeeper surprisingly didn’t hold on to, fell on Sallai’s hand from above, and the Freiburg player certainly can’t be accused of intention here. So there was no reason to punish the handball.
However, things would have been different if Sallai had caught the ball and scored immediately afterwards. Then the handball would have been punishable – because it would have been directly related to the goal being scored by the same player who committed the handball. And that also means that Manuel Riemann didn’t thwart an obvious scoring chance by Sallai because the Freiburg player couldn’t have scored a valid goal immediately. In addition, Sallai had no control of the ball before the foul and an opponent in Dominique Heintz was nearby. These were also arguments against evaluating foul play as an “emergency brake”. Marco Fritz then left it at a yellow card.
– In the top game between FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach (1-1), the outstanding guest goalkeeper Yann Sommer saved almost everything, but after 34 minutes he too had to admit defeat when Sadio Mané scored the goal after a precise pass from Thomas Müller. However, after an intervention by VAR Tobias Reichel and the following on-field review, referee Daniel Schlager annulled the initial goal. Because Leroy Sané was offside with Müller’s pass: Because he made an evasive movement away from the ball and had to hollow his back to avoid being hit, he was clearly active in terms of rules. In addition, at the crucial moment he covered the line of sight of opponents Nico Elvedi and Ko Itakura, who were right next to him. Both influenced the ability of the two Gladbachers to play the ball. So the decision to disallow the goal was correct.
– After just four minutes there was a hand penalty for the home side in the encounter between RB Leipzig and VfL Wolfsburg (2-0). Quite a few may have wondered why referee Bastian Dankert, who had initially whistled for an offside against Leipzig, corrected this decision on a tip from VAR Daniel Siebert without having first visited the review area, as is obligatory in such cases. Two tweets from the official account of the DFB referee provided clarification. Dankert “perceived the punishable handball by the Wolfsburg defender” – meaning Maxence Lacroix – “but decided offside due to the flag sign of his assistant,” it said. During the check, the VAR then determined that there was no punishable offside position. “The handball decision was upheld, so no on-field review by the referee was required.”
– Before the season, the referees in German professional football were urged by their sporting management to act more consistently than before against unsportsmanlike behavior by players and team officials. And the referees have implemented this directive well so far. Examples from the games on Sunday evening: In the sometimes heated encounter between 1. FC Köln and VfB Stuttgart (0-0), the strong referee Harm Osmers warned the Stuttgart coach Pellegrino Matarazzo after 57 minutes and sent him off a yellow-red fifteen minutes later to the stands. The Swabian trainer had protested against Osmers’ decisions excessively and externally. In addition, Stuttgart’s Enzo Millot was warned in added time for hitting the ball away. In the spectacular game Werder Bremen – Eintracht Frankfurt (3:4), the superior referee Patrick Ittrich showed Kevin Trapp from Frankfurt a yellow card in the 75th minute for delaying the game. This sanction also hit Eintracht coach Oliver Glasner in injury time after he had left his coaching zone to make a vehement complaint. It is good and right for the referees to set clear boundaries for such behavior.
