Fans Stunned As VAR Fails To Give Atletico Madrid Blatant Penalty Vs Chelsea

Fans are baffled as to how Chelsea's Cesar Azpilicueta did not give away a penalty against Atletico Madrid for a blatant foul in the box.

Neither the on-pitch referee - nor the VAR officials watching the Champions League last-16 second leg on screens - saw anything wrong with Azpilicueta pulling back Yannick Carasco as he burst through on goal. VAR did not even appear to review it.

While not a dangerous challenge, the Chelsea defender still seemed to clearly pull back the arm of Carasco as he ran towards goal - looking to capitalise on Azpilicueta's own under-hit back-pass. It's a penalty you see given regularly in modern football.

Adding salt to the wound, Chelsea took a first-half lead on the night, less than 10 minutes after Atletico should almost certainly have had a spot-kick.

Hakim Ziyech finished off an excellent counterattack to put Chelsea 1-0 up at Stamford Bridge - and 2-0 up on aggregate in the tie - as Diego Simeone's side face a huge ask in the second half.

BT Sport's former referee turned analyser, Peter Walton, sometimes accused of sitting on the fence, wholly agreed that it was a penalty and couldn't understand why VAR had failed to give the decision.

And the majority of fans on social media shared that view, including several commendably honest Chelsea supporters.

Though maybe it's easy to be magnanimous when you're side is 2-0 up on aggregate with 45 minutes at home to play and heading, as it stands, to the Champions League quarter-finals.

Topics: Chelsea, Champions League

Alex Reid

Alex Reid is a writer at SPORTbible who’s previously strung words together for FourFourTwo, Boxing News, The Guardian and, yes, Cruise International (it’s about big ships, not Tom). Interests range from football and boxing to real sports like WWE and darts. He is not a cage fighter.

@otheralexreid