It was a game that was decided in one moment. The pendulum could have swung towards Olympique de Marseille; instead it swung towards Atalanta. 

In second-half injury time, a ball bounced up inside the Atalanta box, striking Ederson on the arm. Marseille claimed a penalty. It wasn’t given and the Italian side swiftly broke, with Lazar Samardzic curling an effort into the top corner just seconds later. VAR reviewed the incident, the goal stood. 

OM were incensed. Roberto De Zerbi picked up an iPad to show the referee the incident and was booked in the process. The club’s hierarchy did not mince their words post-match. “Do I feel like we’ve been robbed? I feel that way. It is hard to accept,” began Medhi Benatia in a post-match mixed zone interview attended by Get French Football News.

Marseille mayor denounces ‘refereeing error’

“It is a situation where we can clearly see that the player benefits from an unnatural position, when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is lining up to shoot. You can clearly see that the arm changes the trajectory of the ball. And then after, they end up scoring the goal that kills us. I would have at least wanted him to go and look at the screen […] when you speak about it with them, they barely even look at you. That is something that annoys me even more than the penalty. They’re (the referees) arrogant. It’s annoying,” added Benatia.

Marseille’s mayor, Benoit Payan, also weighed in on the controversy. “This evening, such a big refereeing error deprived us of sporting values. Despite everything, [I am] proud of our OM this evening,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).