Real Madrid vs Man City ref watch: Three decisions that Maurizio Mariani got wrong in Champions League clash

Manchester City are returning home with their Champions League hopes in tatters after they were beaten 3-0 away at Real Madrid on Wednesday night.

Pep Guardiola’s side headed into the first leg of their last 16 tie as favourites, with their hosts dealing with plenty of high-profile injuries, but that quickly became a distant memory as the Spanish giants ran riot in the first half.

Federico Valverde netted a stunning 22-minute hat-trick to put Real Madrid firmly in charge of the tie, and City are now facing the daunting prospect of needing to win by four goals at the Etihad Stadium in order to progress next week.

Things could have been even worse for Guardiola’s charges, had Gianluigi Donnarumma not been on hand to save a penalty from Vinicius Junior in the 58th minute.

Referee Maurizio Mariani was left without a major decision to make as Man City were comfortably beaten, and with that in mind, Football Insider picks out three errors that were made by the man in the middle.

Man City denied penalty for Antoine Semenyo incident

Antoine Semenyo has quickly become a key figure for City since his arrival from Bournemouth in January, and he made his Champions League debut on Wednesday night.

However, things didn’t go to plan for the winger as his team were destroyed by their opponents, although Semenyo himself could perhaps count himself unlucky.

The Ghana international was being grabbed and pulled in front of goal by Trent Alexander-Arnold during a 40th-minute corner, and the continued pulling on his shirt could perhaps have been enough to warrant a penalty.

Instead, Mariani gave the free-kick in the opposite direction, as he penalised City for an infringement that took place elsewhere in the box as the ball was delivered.

It was far from an obvious foul from Alexander-Arnold in real time, but replays showed that that it was the type of challenge that penalties could be awarded for from almost every corner.

Mariani gets Jeremy Doku incident wrong

Madrid had City firmly on the rack after the first two goals of Valverde’s quickfire hat-trick, and the visitors were let off the hook by Mariani in the 37th minute.

Jeremy Doku raced Brahim Diaz to a loose ball after a City set-piece, with the Belgian desperately trying to play the ball back to his own goalkeeper from just inside the Madrid half.

The ball bounced up awkwardly for the wideman, allowing Diaz to get an arm across his body and make a challenge, which prompted Doku to skew his backpass into what would have been a potentially dangerous area.

Mariani penalised Diaz for his challenge, but in reality, it appeared to be more of a case of Doku being knocked off balance by a shoulder rather than through a push.

It was a fairly innocuous decision by the referee in the context of the game, but it could have left City in even further trouble had Diaz been able to latch onto Doku’s attempted back pass.

Rayan Ait-Nouri unlucky with yellow card

Rayan Ait-Nouri became the first outfield player to enter Mariani’s book, when he was shown a yellow for stopping a Madrid counter-attack in the 81st minute.

The left-back was cautioned for bundling over Franco Mastantuono with the hosts on the attack in the City half, but it could be argued that he was somewhat unlucky to go into the book for his first foul of the game.

Mastantuono was trying to control an awkward bouncing ball when he was felled, so while Ait-Nouri’s challenge technically did prevent a counter-attack, it was far from straightforward for Mastantuono to have kept hold of the ball.

It was a decision that compounded City’s dismal evening, as they were totally outclassed by their opponents.

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