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Inter Milan was left seething after Liverpool's 1-0 victory at the San Siro on Tuesday, with two players voicing their frustration over the decision to award the Reds a late penalty.
Dominik Szoboszlai netted the winner from the spot in the 88th minute, following a VAR review that deemed Alessandro Bastoni had pulled back Florian Wirtz. Although he did tug on the German's shirt, the decision to award the penalty seemed somewhat lenient.
The Reds, however, weren't complaining as they seized the opportunity to secure a crucial three points against last season's Champions League runner-up. Inter lost the 2025 final 5-0 to Paris Saint-Germain in Munich.
While the Reds celebrated their hard-won victory, especially in light of the recent upheaval caused by Mohamed Salah's explosive remarks about Arne Slot and the club, members of the Inter team expressed their dissatisfaction with the outcome.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan was insistent that his team didn't deserve to lose, expressing his anger at the decision to award the penalty. "I think it was a balanced game and no one deserved to win tonight," he said. "The best result was a draw.
"I don't know how they came up with a penalty that never existed, but this is football. We are not happy. If you give a penalty like this, then every contact in the box is a penalty.
“It hurts to lose a match like this, when you fight for 85 minutes, and a penalty like that is awarded, but we have to move on. It’s hard to accept, but we need to keep our heads up, work harder, and try to change things in the next two matches.
"Tonight wasn’t our best performance, but we shouldn’t forget that we were up against a top-level opponent. It was a balanced game and, in my opinion, a draw would have been fair, but the referee decided to award a penalty for what felt like a dive."
Manchester City loanee Manuel Akanji was equally unimpressed. "It’s tough because in the end we’ve come away with zero points because I think we were the better team," he told CBS. "We had the better chances, and in the end, to concede a penalty like this is tough; it’s tough to lose a game like this.
“The penalty situation, I mean, he pulls his shirt, but it’s a soft pull, and obviously if you watch everything in slow motion, everything looks far worse than it actually is. The player runs away from the goal, and he pulls his shirt a bit, and it’s one of the softest penalties I’ve ever seen. But in the end, we have to be honest, we can’t get in the position to give the referee an opportunity to even whistle for a penalty there. For me, it’s never a pen."
Inter's players are 'disappointed and angry'
Piotr Zielinski would also express his frustration at the decision, stating: "We're disappointed and angry, because we felt we played well, but perhaps we were just missing that little something in the final third.
"As for the refereeing decisions, I don’t know – on the pitch, it never looked like a foul. If those are given, then from now on every challenge in the box will be a penalty."
However, it wasn't only the Inter players who were left fuming at the penalty award.
Former England boss Fabio Capello might be a longstanding adversary of Inter, having both featured for and managed Roma, Juventus, and AC Milan throughout his distinguished career. Yet that didn't prevent the 79-year-old from lambasting the contentious decision.
"It's a scandalous penalty. I don't understand why VAR had to intervene when the referee had seen everything," he said on Sky Italia. "The obvious simulation of throwing himself to the ground.
"I don't understand tonight's VAR: it took them three minutes to disallow a very clear handball goal. They called the referee for pulling his shirt... that way we'd have a million penalties a game.
"It's a precedent, and it's shameful."
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