EM: "We were cheated!" Matthäus rages after admission

SPOX EM: "We were cheated!" Matthäus rages after admission Article by Christian Guinin • 1 hour • 2 minutes reading time "If it's true that UEFA now admits that it was a wrong decision - then we were obviously cheated! Then the alleged instruction was just an excuse. It's actually a disgrace that they're now admitting what everyone saw back then," Matthäus is quoted as saying by Bild. UEFA report confirms: DFB team should have been awarded a penalty in the European Championship quarter-finals The 63-year-old continued to rant: "I immediately said: clear penalty! Then the next day the news came that there had been an instruction from the UEFA referee chairman not to give a penalty if the arm was hanging loosely. That's why I said that the decision not to give a penalty was understandable." Today, however, the question arises as to whether "this instruction did not actually exist. To clarify this, I would be interested in the statements of the referee and the VAR." Relevo had previously revealed that Germany should have been awarded a penalty in the quarter-finals of the 2024 European Championship against Spain (1:2 after extra time) after handball by Marc Cucurella. The Spanish portal based its report on an internal UEFA report. In this report, Roberto Rosetti, referee observer, is quoted as saying: "According to the latest UEFA guidelines, handball contact that prevents a shot on goal should be punished more severely and in most cases a penalty should be awarded, unless the defender's arm is very close to the body or touches the body. In this case (Cucurella; editor's note), the defender prevents the shot on goal with his arm, which is not very close to the body, making it larger, so a penalty should be awarded." In the match in question, the English referee Anthony Taylor denied the German team a penalty after Cucurella handled the ball. With the score at 1:1, Jamal Musiala took a shot on goal, which Cucurella, who was standing in the penalty area, received from a relatively short distance on his left arm and blocked. UEFA initially described Taylor's decision as correct because "Cucurella's hand was not in an unnatural position at the time it touched the ball." The DFB has not yet made an official statement on the case. According to Bild, the association will first ask UEFA and clarify the matter. Only then will they comment.