Massimiliano Allegri was gracious in defeat.
As Gianluigi Buffon raged and Giorgio Chiellini made ‘how much did you pay the referee?’ gestures towards the Real Madrid players, the Juventus manager’s post-match remarks were comparatively measured.
Allegri had been irate on the touchline after Michael Oliver awarded Real a penalty deep into added time for Medhi Benatia’s challenge on Lucas Vasquez but appeared to have cooled off by the time he was asked for his assessment on the chaotic events before the final whistle.
“To cry right now is useless,” Allegri said. “Unfortunately, it went like that and Gigi had the reaction, which was understandable. I don’t know if it was his last game. There were three seconds to go, we’d come back and he had a human reaction.
“There was a lot of confusion. The ref thought it was a open and he gave it. We can’t do anything about it. We have a bitter taste as we also played well last week, despite the result. You need to understand that after a game like this to have a penalty awarded against you is difficult to take.”
Allegri standing out as the most sanguine/measured.
— James Horncastle (@JamesHorncastle) April 11, 2018
Watching the wild scenes on the pitch, Allegri could be seen having an exchange of opinions with Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos, who was standing next to the technical area despite being suspended.
“I told [Sergio] Ramos it was a grey-area penalty,” Allegri said. “In the first leg we had a penalty in the 93rd minute that wasn’t awarded. Then there was the red card to Buffon which was hard to take. He told me that it was a penalty. He understood but pretended not to. We were just seconds from the end. Both sides deserved to go through. It’s just not possible.”
Meanwhile, Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane said his side deserved to go through on the basis of their performance over the two legs.
“If you concede in the first minute, your head goes down, and it gives them life,” Zidane said.
“Then they played very well, and we were bad — not in chances, as we made chances, but we had a bit of difficulty in managing our game.
“But we believed until the end that we would go through. And I believe that across the two games we deserved to make the semis. We can be happy with that.”
