Rizzoli: Bilovar did not deserve to be sent off in the match between Dynamo and Veres

UAF chief refereeing expert Nicola Rizzoli analyzed the controversial episode involving Dynamo defender Kristian Bilovar in the match of the 2nd round of the UPL against Veres. According to the Italian expert, the football player from Kyiv did not deserve a red card. Bilovar violated the rules against the attacker of the Rivne team Nathanael Blair in the 15th minute of the meeting. The episode sparked debate as to whether the defender denied the opposition an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. Rizzoli emphasized that for such a decision, the referee must comprehensively evaluate four criteria: the distance to the goal, the direction of the attack, the ability of the attacker to maintain or establish control over the ball, as well as the positions and number of defenders. "Bilovar commits a foul on forward Veres Blair while developing a promising attack towards the goal. The key point is to determine how this violation should be qualified: disruption of a promising attack or denying the opponent an obvious scoring opportunity. As you know, the referee must take into account four main criteria: the distance from the place of the infringement to the goal, the general direction of the attack, the probability of maintaining or establishing control over the ball and the location and number of defenders. All four criteria must be evaluated in aggregate." According to the expert, the key factors in this episode were the distance to the goal and the attacker's ability to continue the attack with ball control. "The violation occurs at a significant distance from the opponent's goal, although it does not in itself exclude the possibility of qualifying the episode as depriving the opponent of an obvious opportunity to score a goal. Therefore, a significant distance from the goal is an important argument in interpreting the episode as a disruption of a prospective attack. The perspective of the replay from behind the gate provides important information. It shows that the ball is moving to the left and the attacker is moving to the right. In fact, the attacker is moving away from the ball's flight path." Rizzoli also drew attention to the position of another Dynamo defender who could enter the fight for the ball. "The ball is moving into an area from where another defender is able to intervene in the episode. Therefore, it cannot be said with sufficient confidence that the attacker would be able to establish and maintain control of the ball and continue the movement towards the goal before the defender could enter the fight for the ball. These circumstances create reasonable doubts about the existence of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. Therefore, the referee correctly qualified the episode as a disruption of a promising attack and showed the violator a yellow card. VAR correctly limited itself to a quiet check without intervention," Rizzoli said. In that match, Dynamo won a victory over Veres with a score of 2:1. The match was served by Oleksiy Derevinbroadcasteri.