SOne day after Borussia Dortmund’s 1-1 draw at VfL Bochum, referee Sascha Stegemann admitted a possibly game-winning mistake and described his discomfort with his own performance. “When things go the way they went yesterday, you take that home with you. Then you take it to bed with you. You ask yourself a lot of questions. You turn from left to right. You stare at the ceiling,” said the 38-year-old on Saturday on the pay TV channel Sky: “That’s why the whole thing is still in my bones. I’m not just a soccer referee, I’m also a soccer player and, above all, a human being.”
Previously, the DFB had also admitted a mistake by the referee after the heavy criticism from those responsible in Dortmund at the referee team. Regarding the unpunished foul by Bochum’s Danilo Soares in the penalty area on national player Karim Adeyemi, a statement published on Saturday said: “He doesn’t play the ball, instead he only hits the opponent and brings him down. That is a foul and therefore a penalty kick, as the TV pictures also show.”
Stegemann also said that with a time lag and after watching the TV pictures he was now certain that Bochum’s goal against Adeyemi was “a clear penalty kick”. “Accordingly, there should have been a penalty for Borussia Dortmund.”
But his perception on the pitch was “that Adeyemi put his foot out and tried to initiate contact and look for the penalty a bit, and then fell over the Bochum defender”. Video assistant Robert Hartmann checked the action and came to the conclusion “that it was not a clear and obvious wrong decision”.
However, the main referee would have liked to receive a hint afterwards so that he could watch the duel again in the review arena. “But there are people in Cologne who make mistakes just like we do on the field.”
Dortmund’s coach Edin Terzic and sports director Sebastian Kehl had mainly complained that Stegemann had not watched this situation and other controversial scenes again in the video on Friday evening. “The expectation must remain that such events will be decided correctly by the referee on the pitch without the need for support from the video assistant,” wrote the German Football Association on its website.
No hand penalty: understandable
Stegemann can understand the anger and the emotional statements made by Terzic and Kehl: “Borussia Dortmund has the chance to win the German championship again after several years. If things then go the way they did last night and there is no justified penalty, then you sympathize a bit and can understand that the emotions are running high there.”
Dortmund were also upset about two other situations. Before Bochum made it 1-0, they saw a foul on BVB midfielder Emre Can. The DFB did not comment on this scene. In addition, Borussia had demanded a hand penalty after VfL defender Erhan Masovic got the ball in the penalty area.
The sporting director of DFB Schiri GmbH commented on the situation as follows: “The defender tries to block a shot with his right leg in front. However, the ball goes against the left leg and over the upper body to the left upper arm, which the referee does not classify as an unnatural enlargement of the body surface in this sequence of movements, but as a natural movement to support the body as it falls. This assessment of the process by the referee is understandable from the point of view of the TV pictures. ”So the defensive behavior was not a penalty.