De Bruyne’s goal which paves the way for Napoli’s victory contested by the Ligurians. Attack on the new designator for the choice of the match director: here is the precedent that is causing discussion…
Good intentions and promises to collaborate with the referees vanished in an instant. The championship restarts exactly where it stopped three months ago, from the controversy against the whistles and from the poisons spread liberally for their mistakes or presumed ones.
Galeotto the goal that opened the Marassi match between Genoa and Napoli in the final, when the Neapolitans were producing their maximum effort after having suffered against the hosts for a long time. Goal scored by the Belgian De Bruyne after a push, which seemed quite evident, on Vaquez’s back.
Do it for many, not for Mr. Di Bello who conceded the goal, paving the way for Napoli’s victory. A choice that was not digested by Genoa; on the pitch there were huge protests from the bench and outside there was a frontal attack on the referee and the new referee, Daniele Orsato, by the Ligurian sporting director Diego Lopez.
“Fortunately for us today in football there are many cameras and all of Italy saw what happened, it was a fairly clear action – the manager shot at eye level -. There was some concern about Di Bello’s appointment, we tried not to think too much about last year’s VAR against Napoli and the sending off that didn’t happen in Rome. Unfortunately there are things we don’t get into. When you concede a goal in this way, the clear reaction is to try to score another one.”
The reference is to the penalty awarded on the call of Di Bello (then a Varsity player) in the last championship, the final moments of Genoa-Napoli: error for Aia, three points for Conte’s then team. For three days the environment around Genoa had been seething over the appointment of Di Bello, the manager only gave shape to his thoughts by speaking openly about it after the match was over, decided by another extremely dubious episode.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the individual event, the signal is clear: it will be another season of protests, controversies and refereeing poisons. The problem wasn’t Rocchi, in short, but this was already clear enough. If anything, Orsato has had his baptism of fire and it will be interesting to understand which line of communication he will want to follow to argue the decisions of his men, possibly admit mistakes or respond to the clubs’ attacks.
The other reflection is on the foul threshold in Serie A. Orsato announced that, despite the rules providing for a greater range of intervention by the VAR, he expects referees to decide on the pitch and choices that are also respected on the monitor in the yardstick taken. We’re going back to the old ways a bit, therefore, but at the first test the consensus around the idea of limiting VAR interference immediately collapsed.
THE 2026/2027 SERIE A GRID ACCORDING TO THE PANORAMA
