After four consecutive victories, Lazio did not go beyond 0-0 in the home match against Ludogorets valid for the fifth day of the ‘Championship Phase’ of the Europa League. From start to finish Baroni’s team led the match, but was unable to break the deadlock in a match which saw the Bulgarian team defend to the bitter end, with a very flat 5-4-1 in front of the goalkeeper.
However, the penalty not awarded by referee Strukan to the home team was controversial. With a quarter of an hour to go, Marcus was late on Isaksen but the Croatian referee did not award the penalty either in real time or after the VAR called him before the monitor. “I don’t want to comment on the refereeing – said Baroni post-match – when a team consistently plays in the opponent’s half of the pitch and comes away with six yellow cards against two, plus such an uncommentable episode what can I say? I certainly didn’t congratulations to the referee. A referee at this level must have a certain sporting spirit, but this is not the topic today. In the second half we accelerated, but we were not very clean in finishing. In these matches you have to score goals, if you score ends in In the end we were very good behind because these are very dangerous games.” Despite this draw, Lazio is still first in the standings and after five rounds is already mathematically certain of qualifying for the play-off phase.
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