Venezia suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat against Inter Milan in their Serie A encounter at San Siro, with a last-minute equalizer disallowed for handball. Following the match, Venezia’s manager Eusebio Di Francesco shared his thoughts on the game and the refereeing decisions.
Di Francesco began by addressing the controversial disallowed goal: “I don’t think the handball is as evident as described, but if that’s what the rules say, I don’t want to go against the refereeing. I don’t believe the foul is obvious. I think the overall refereeing management tonight was more in favor of the other side for the entire 90 minutes, but I don’t want to discuss this further. I want to compliment my team. We managed to create 3 or 4 goal-scoring opportunities that were crucial.”
Reflecting on his team’s performance, Di Francesco said: “Transition is Inter’s greatest quality. Sometimes you can be as good as you want, but then it becomes difficult to control the game. We often favored them, but that can happen. I had anticipated some risks, but paradoxically, we conceded a goal in a situation where we were very well positioned. We could have marked better, but at the same time, we had significant opportunities to score. In the first half, we played a good game, but we were timid.”
The Venezia coach also praised goalkeeper Filip Stankovic’s performance: “Filip has composure. Today he gave his best performance since becoming a starter. I liked him because he provided calmness and confidence until the end. This team is working in a certain direction, and he is interpreting it in the best way possible.”
