Roma blame Russian ref for loss to revived Real

ROMA players have blamed Russian referee Valentin Ivanov for their 4-2 Champions League defeat by Real Madrid.

Roma led 2-1 at the Bernabeu when Ivanov awarded Real a penalty in the 53rd minute after defender Christian Panucci appeared to shove Raul in the back.

Luis Figo’s conversion levelled the scores and Real then cruised to victory with goals from Raul and Roberto Carlos.

“The referee determined the match. That penalty had a huge effect on the result,” Panucci said yesterday. “I really couldn’t believe it. Everyone saw there was no penalty.”

The result left Roma bottom of Group B with no points from two matches. Their opening game, at home to Dynamo Kiev, was abandoned when the referee was hit by an object thrown from the crowd. The Ukrainian side were awarded a 3-0 win.

Roma’s Traianos Dellas said he still thought the Italian club could reach the next stage of the competition.

“That penalty set Real back on track. Reaching the knockout rounds of the Champions League is going to be difficult from now on, but I’m convinced we can still do it, even if the only result open to us in our next match against Bayer Leverkusen (on October 19) is a win,” he said.

Real Madrid players breathed a collective sigh of relief after the result. “The game started very badly for us, but we proved we could pick ourselves up and come through to win,” said David Beckham.

“When we went 2-0 down we said ‘this is it, it’s make or break now’. When we’d calmed down we knew we would always get chances. Now we’ve got this game out of the way, it takes the pressure off. The most important thing was that we never gave up.”

The game was a triumph for Raul who had been under pressure because of his poor early-season form. But he said the victory was more important to him than his own personal performance. “It was a life or death game for us and that’s why I was so happy to score,” said Raul.