Germany were left fuming by a “clear handball” on the goal-line by England captain Leah Williamson after their Women’s European Championship final defeat.
Manager Martina Voss-Tecklenburg criticized referee Kateryna Monzul for not rechecking the first-half incident herself after the Video Assistant Referee ruled that her decision not to award a penalty had not been a clear and obvious error.
The game was goalless at the time, with England going on to take the lead in the second half.
Voss-Tecklenburg said: “Let’s differentiate between football and feelings and let’s start with the footballing things. In the first half the ball possession was a bit more on the English side.
“We managed to have some attacks, but what I’m thinking about now is that there was a situation at 0-0 where there was a clear handball in the box and Var looked at it and didn’t award the penalty.
“In such a big game, it’s difficult to cope with that. I’m asking, why didn’t the referee look at it? That would have given us more safety if we’d scored.”
She added of the officials’ refusal to check again: “At this level and in the final of a European championship, this didn’t happen. Why didn’t they look at it? Sometimes it happens to others, it happened to us today, and if it had happened to England I wouldn’t be content either, it bothers me.”
Voss-Tecklenburg also declared her side “unlucky” to lose but congratulated England and said they were “deserved champions”, applauding them for winning the “hearts” of the nation.
Germany had won all eight of their previous Euros finals and Voss-Tecklenburg said: “For us, it was a bit ambivalent, a lot of pride, and it was incredibly loud, difficult to communicate, but this will help us a lot for the future.
“On the one hand, I’m super proud because we gave out everything on the pitch, the sweat, the fight, the energy, everything we gave on the pitch so that’s very sad, you can’t really find the right words to say to the team.
“We came here to win the game, we didn’t manage to do so but it was a game on the same level and I think tomorrow or the day after I’ll have a different feeling about it.”