Roma 1-0 Leicester: 3 Things FoL learned from Rome

The officiating was abysmal

I never like to lay blame for a loss on officiating, I think that it is an easy way out of assessing why the result may have not gone the way we would have liked. But in this case, I’ll make an exception. If the King Power club’s fans thought the way the first leg was refereed was questionable, to put it politely, second leg officiating left the players, Rodgers and supporters completely dumfounded.

Serbian official Srdjan Jovanović seemed to make bewildering decision after bewildering decision. Starting in the early minutes of the tie when Chris Smalling seemingly manhandled Wesley Fofana to the ground in the Roma box directly in the ref’s eyeline, a decision which VAR deemed not a grand enough error to overturn.

The incomprehensible adjudicating did not end there, the first half was full of inconsistencies in regard to what Jovanović was willing to blow for and when he allowed play to continue. One instance that really stuck in the mind was the strong challenge by Jamie Vardy on Roger Ibañez, in which the Leicester talisman clearly won the ball with his sliding tackle directly in front of the linesman.

Maybe the most egregious of the bunch came just before 90th minute when Leicester were chasing the game, second-half substitute Ayoze Pérez having beaten Gianluca Mancini by the left corner of the pitch back heeled the ball off the Roma centre back in order to win his side a late corner. Though Jovanović somehow did not see it this way and gave the home side a goal kick and another chance to waste precious minutes off the clock.