Thomas Tuchel laid into referee Szymon Marciniak after Chelsea’s Champions League reign was ended by Real Madrid on Tuesday night.
The German was angered by the VAR decision to rule out a Marcos Alonso goal for handball without the on-field referee reviewing the incident for himself on the pitch side monitor.
And he also hit out at the official when he saw him “laughing” with Real manager Carlo Ancelotti after the final whistle.
Tuchel said: “I was disappointed that the referee had a good time with my colleague Carlo Ancelotti. I know Carlo is a nice guy, but when I wanted to go and say thank you for the match, I saw him smiling and laughing loudly with the opponents’ coach.
“I think this is the wrong time to do this after a final whistle from 120 minutes where one team gave all their hearts and fought until the last drop. You go and see the referee smiling and laughing with the other coach. I think it is very, very bad timing. I told him this.”
Alonso thought he had put Chelsea 3-0 up just after the hour-mark, but his celebrations were cut short by VAR.
Tuchel was furious that Marciniak did not choose to review the incident himself.
“If you play against Madrid, sometimes you can maybe not expect that everyone has the courage,” said the Chelsea manager. “I felt the little decisions also in the first leg and the second leg today as well.
“I did not see the goal, but I told him that I was super disappointed that he does not come out and check it on his own. In a match like this where you have a certain line to whistle, you should stay the boss and not give decisions like this to somebody in a chair who is isolated from the atmosphere.
“He has a certain style - certain things that he allows and does not allow and he follows a certain line, so I think he should stay in charge and check it on his own then he could also explain it better.”
Tuchel also complained about the amount of stoppage time added, saying: “I thought we deserved more minutes in the end because it felt like we had no minutes to play in the second half of the extra-time.
“Maybe it is too much to ask for in matches like this against this opponent. We had it in our hands and we were not lucky enough.”
