Aston Villa edged a five-goal thriller in the Champions League against RB Leipzig on Tuesday night, with one of the assistant referees left in tears after the full-time whistle
08:25, 11 Dec 2024Updated 08:27, 11 Dec 2024
Alessandro Giallatini
Assistant referee Alessandro Giallatini was in tears after the game ended(Image: Amazon Prime Video Sport)
The mystery behind assistant referee Alessandro Giallatini's emotional outburst following Aston Villa's thrilling 3-2 victory over RB Leipzig has been explained.
Giallatini was seen shedding tears and sharing a poignant moment with Leipzig manager Marco Rose as players and coaches from both teams exchanged handshakes in Germany. The Italian official had just presided over Villa's latest Champions League success, where Ross Barkley's deflected goal in the 85th minute propelled Unai Emery's team to third place in the table, setting them on track for automatic qualification to the knockout stages.
This marked Villa's fourth victory in six Champions League matches, having twice recovered their lead after John McGinn and Jhon Duran put them in front. As Villa's ecstatic fans rejoiced post-match, Giallatini was caught up in a wave of different emotions.
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The reason being, Tuesday's match signified the 49-year-old official's final game as an assistant referee. Among Giallatini's career highlights is his involvement in the 2020 Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain.
Roberto Martinez, Amazon Prime Video Sport pundit and Portugal's manager, praised Giallatini's fervour for the sport after witnessing the electrifying match. Despite Leipzig managing to equalise twice and now being eliminated from progressing to the knockout stage, Villa proved too formidable, as they have against Bayern Munich, Bologna, and Young Boys thus far, reports the Mirror.
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McGinn's third-minute stunner was swiftly neutralised by Lois Openda before the half-hour mark. Post-interval, Duran reclaimed the lead for Villa, but Christoph Baumgartner levelled the score 10 minutes later.The game-changer came from Barkley when his long-distance shot ricocheted off substitute Lukas Klostermann, eluding the stranded Peter Gulacsi. Emery shared his thoughts with Amazon after the match, saying: "We tried to overcome the mistakes we made and we did. More or less we were playing consistently.
"One mistake and they score but then we played very well. Champions League is very difficult and we have to expect that every team playing at home are feeling strong. We played with consistency and domination."On achieving a potentially higher finish and avoiding the playoffs, the Spaniard added, "Today we were thinking if we won we could be a contender in the last two matches to be in the top eight. We achieved this option and we are going to try and get top eight. We are happy because we are in the top 24."