When Tyrone Mings visualised his Champions League debut, he might have seen a clean sheet, a win, and maybe even dreamt of a winning goal. But gifting the opposition a penalty in an obscure way would not have been on his list.
With the game goalless, Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez took a quick goal kick, passing sideways to Mings who was positioned a few yards to the Argentine’s left, just outside the six-yard box.
Mings had not yet looked at the goalkeeper, suggesting may not have known the ball was in play, but Club Bruges striker Ferran Jutgla had assumed play had begun.
With Jutgla, who was positioned just outside the box when Martinez played the pass, now moving towards the defender, Mings picked up the ball with his left hand and walked back a few steps before placing it back onto the six-yard line and passing to Martinez. Meanwhile, Bruges players protested to referee Tobias Stieler for a handball and a penalty.
The German official pointed immediately to the spot, and his decision was confirmed by the VAR, Benjamin Brand, moments later. Club captain Hans Vanaken dispatched the penalty putting the Belgian club 1-0 ahead.
By the laws of the game, there is no question that this was a penalty. The handball rules used by UEFA state it is a handball if a player “deliberately touches the ball with their hand/arm, for example moving their hand/arm towards the ball or touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger”.
Given the play was live when Mings picked up the ball, the decision to award a penalty might be considered as clear as any for the referee. Still, Villa fans might be slightly aggrieved when remembering a similar incident in Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final clash with Bayern, which did not result in a spot kick.
This incident occurred in the 67th minute of the match, with Bayern leading 2-1. After the referee blew his whistle to indicate the restart of play from a goal kick, Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya played a short square pass to team-mate Gabriel.
Like Mings, Gabriel picked the ball up with his hands and set it down again inside the six-yard box, seemingly not realising play was now live.
Immediately after Gabriel handled the ball, Bayern attackers Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala turned towards the referee and asked for a penalty, pointing towards their arms to indicate a handball.
However, unlike Steiler, referee Glenn Nyberg swiftly waved away their claims.
According to IFAB’s handball law, there should be no debate; it is a penalty. The ball was live, and Gabriel “deliberately touched the ball with his hand” inside the box. If football were a sport to be followed by the letter of the law without human interpretation, the referee would have given the penalty without question, and there would have been little room for debate afterwards.
However, as FIFA match official and rules analyst Christina Unkel told CBS Sports at the time, there is a time and place where “common sense” should prevail.
“If you are arguing for this to be a penalty kick, with all due respect, you hate football,” said Unkel. “Here, we have to use common sense and (the so-called) Law 18. At no point was any advantage taken away from Bayern in this situation and, most importantly, it was just an honest and legitimate mistake. There was no reason why the defender would have picked up the ball and placed it, aside from the fact he never heard the whistle in the first place.”
There is no Law 18 in IFAB’s Laws of The Game, but in the introduction, it says: “Referees are expected to use common sense and to apply the ‘spirit of the game’ when applying the Laws of the Game.” For that reason, the use of common sense has become almost an unwritten law — hence Unkel referring to Law 18. On this occasion, it comes to Arsenal’s rescue.
Unlike Mings, who has Jutgla descending on him, Gabriel is under no pressure from Musiala or Kane, who are both positioned outside the 18-yard box, and the Brazil international has time and space to find a pass. He makes no progression with his return pass to Raya (in fact, he returns the ball to the six-yard line and passes square), a pass he could easily have made before handling the ball.
That match finished 2-2, with Leandro Trossard equalising around 10 minutes later for Arsenal. Villa were not to be so fortunate, losing their first game of the Champions League season after a stellar 100 per cent start to their first campaign in Europe’s premier competition since 1983. If they had beaten Bruges, they would have become the first English club to win their first four games of the Champions League.
Villa manager Unai Emery appeared to have no qualms with Steiler’s decision. “It’s very, very strange this mistake,” Emery said after the match. “But it’s football. I don’t know whether it was intensity. It was the mistake, because in the first half, we played like we planned. The match changed after our mistake.
“It’s completely strange. It is the biggest mistake we’ve made in my career as a coach. If we make a mistake in our build-up, I can accept it. In the first half, we did it fantastic.”
For Mings, who had spent 445 days on the sidelines after suffering a severe ACL injury, his debut in club football’s most prestigious competition is one to forget.
Addional reporting: Jacob Tanswell
(Top image: TNT Sports)
