Football fans are not used to listen to a referee admitting his mistakes on the pitch, and the following words by ref Mark Clattenburg will surely make some noise.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Clattenburg was talking about those players who were the most complicated to control on the pitch, and maybe inadvertedly, he chose to reveal he realized his mistake during the 2016 UEFA Champions League by allowing Sergio Ramos' goal in a clear offside position.
"During that game, Real Madrid scored the opening goal in the first half, but that goal should have been disallowed due to Ramos' offside position. We realized he was offside during the break. It was a tough call to make and my assistant was not able to see it," Clattenburg said.
Clattenburg made this admission when talking about Pepe and how he was so hard to control on the pitch. Furthermore, he told the newspaper how he tried to shut Pepe up by telling him how Los Blancos should not have a lead during that game.
"Pepe fouled Torres during the first minutes of the second half. He was really upset, and he came to me yelling in perfect English 'that can't be a penalty, Mark'. I looked back and told him 'your first goal should have been disallowed for offside,' and he shut his mouth," Clattenburg added.
Clattenburg admitted that his words were enough to calm Pepe down, but he tried to explain why the fierce Portuguese defender calmed down after such a statement.
"People may see it as a weird thing, because two wrongs don't make one right. Refs don't think like that, but players do. I knew that if I told him, he'd shut up and carry on playing. It was not a fun thing to ref in a game where he was playing, you constantly had to keep an eye on him," Clattenburg concluded.
