*Vinícius’ great goal.
At the Estádio da Luz in Portugal, Real Madrid beat Benfica at the start of the Champions League playoffs.However, the exceptional conquest took a backseat after Vinícius accused the Argentine Gianluca Prestianni of a racist insult.
Seconds after his great goal, the Brazilian forward generated controversy with his rivals due to a dance celebration.This was taken as a provocation by Benfica, who reacted through their captain Nicolás Otamendi.
After a few minutes of protests and reproaches from both sides, Vinícius publicly denounced having received a racist insult from the Argentine Gianluca Prestianni.The Brazilian approached referee Francois Letexier and claimed that his rival called him “monkey.”
*Vinícius accused Prestianni of a racist insult.
Automatically, the French judge activated the preventive protocol: he made the so-called “racist incident gesture”, which consists of crossing his hands at the wrist and which aims to empower footballers, coaching staff and referee teams so that they can stand up to racism.
For this reason, the match was delayed for ten minutes, enough time for the VAR booth to corroborate this action.Meanwhile, Vinícius spoke with Benfica coach José Mourinho, who tried to get him to return to the field since the Brazilian had gone to the substitutes’ bench.
After analyzing the images, neither the refereeing body on the playing field nor the judges located in the VAR cabin could confirm that the former Vélez striker had insulted his rival, since he had his mouth covered by his shirt. Everything resumed, although this incident will be investigated by the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Court.
35 minutes into the first half, Nicolás Otamendi, Gianluca Prestianni and Real Madrid players Kylian Mbappé, Antonio Rüdiger and Vinicius had already starred in a tense moment.
The situation was triggered after Aurélien Tchouaméni collided with his extended arm against Rafa Silva, who fell and remained on the ground.The referee decided not to sanction an infraction, so the game continued briefly until the actions stopped when he saw that Silva did not rejoin.
*Otamendi and Prestianni had already had a clash with Vinícius and Mbappé.
While the Portuguese player was still lying on the grass, the Real Madrid players approached, claiming that he was pretending to delay the restart of the game.Faced with this pressure, both Otamendi and Prestianni intervened to defend their teammate.Prestianni pushed Vinicius in the middle of the altercation, while Otamendi twice pushed aside Mbappé, who was trying to communicate with Silva.
The incident occurred when the match was going on without any previous friction, beyond the tension inherent to the crossing.Rafa Silva showed gestures of pain on the ground during the sequence.
Both teams faced each other after an emotional antecedent, in which the Portuguese won 4-2 in the group stage with a header goal from goalkeeper Anatoli Trubin.
The day also included the 3-2 victory of the current champion Paris Saint-Germain against Monaco, despite starting losing by two goals;and Borussia Dortmund’s 2-0 victory over Atalanta.In the first round, Galatasaray defeated Juventus 5-2 in Istanbul, a result that favors the Turkish team for the second leg in Turin.
At this stage, there are 16 teams vying for their place in the round of 16, while Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Sporting Lisbon and Manchester City have already assured their presence in the next round.In addition, teams such as Inter, Newcastle, Atlético Madrid, Leverkusen, Olympiacos, Bruges, Qarabag and Bodo Glimt continue in the dispute to obtain one of the eight remaining places.
