It was always going be a tall order to get any kind of result against Atletico, but the task was made near on impossible by the referee’s decision to send off Maeda early in the first half.
It just wasn’t enough to send Maeda off, but in an age where VAR zooms in on one frame of a challenge, it’s hard to escape red cards if they dig deep enough.
Maeda shouldn’t have been sent off, but the screen shot the referee uses to send him off looks worse.
However, later in the game Kyogo would suffer a challenge that if you freeze frame it, shows the exact same infringement that Maeda was sent off for.
Where is the conscience in decision making?
Celtic lost the game heavily in the end and would have still struggled to get a result with eleven men on the pitch. However, we were denied a level playing field by a referee who was out of his depth and who has previous for ridiculous decisions against Celtic.
