This was an odd but exciting game for every football fan. However, perhaps not for the fans of VAR as I feel there were some dubious decisions made.
City took the lead after capitalising on a lapse in concentration from the Schalke defence.
The controversy came with the first Schalke penalty, Daniel Caligiuri launched a shot on goal and the ball clearly hit Nicolas Otamendi on the arm. However, VAR was again asked and took well over two minutes to decide that the hand ball was deliberate (trust me, it got worse when I found out the pitch side screen didn’t work).
Schalke were then awarded another penalty seven minutes later – and replays have shown that Salif Sané was offside. Nabil Bentaleb calmly tucked away his second of the evening.
The second half was well managed from Schalke and looked to be in their favour, when Otamendi received a second booking for a needless challenge. However, Pep Guardiola finally brought on Leroy Sané (78 minutes too late), and he scored a world class free kick to equalise. With time ticking away, Raheem Sterling was sent through by Ederson of all people, and calmly slotted past Ralf Fährmann to win the game.
Here’s how we rated the winning team:
