Michael Oliver's decision to award Real Madrid a last minute penalty against Juventus last night was not a popular one.
The debate of 'was it or wasn't it' then spilled over into a conversation of what's worthy of a red card, with Juventus' legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon being shown his marching orders for touching the referee.
Both sides of the argument can be found in their most heated forms on Twitter, but OTB:AM had James Horncastle on this morning's show for a slightly for measured assessment of the incident.
"I think you have to judge the situation as well. It's the 93rd minute of a Champions League quarter-final. Gigi Buffon was very dissappointed that Michael Oliver, in his opinion, did not show the sensibility for the occasion. If you're going to give a penalty for an incident like that in the 93rd minute, there's always going to be controversy. There's always going to be players acting in the heat of the moment.
"What left some people incredulous was that Buffon does seem to lay his hands on the referee, and we have seen players sent off for that in the past, but we've also seen players do a lot worse and not be sent off".
After the game Buffon questioned Oliver's character and said he had a "heart made of trash". The Italian stopper also claimed that because Juventus had fought back to 3-3 from being 3-0 down in the first leg, and had made it to the final minute of the game, the referee shouldn't have pointed to the spot as the decision was cruel on Buffon's side.
"In terms of what Buffon said afterwards about Michael Oliver's character, you have to have a very strong character to make the decision he did last night, whether that was right or wrong. This is a guy who's 33-years-old, refereeing at the Bernabeu, it does take a hell of a lot of guts to do what he did there".
Horncastle took a hard stance on the comments which he deemed unacceptable, though did note that he could see where Buffon's frustrations arose from given the gravitas of the decision for both the team and individual player.
"We can go into the merits of the decision or not, but I think Buffon overstepped the line in my opinion in what he said about Oliver last night. You can express your disappointment about the decision and how it's gone, but I thought the line about him having a rubbish bin for a heart was too much really. From someone who is very statesman-like usually, very rational after games, and usually finds the right words, and I thought it was very out of character from Buffon in many respects".
"You have to put this into context. This is a guy who in all likelihood thought he was playing in his last Champions League game, he thought they were on the absolute brink of a miracle. What happened happened in the 93rd or 94th minute, so you can completely see where that reaction came from".
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