Over in the Argentinian Superliga, it looked for all the world like lowly Belgrano were on course to secure a much-needed victory over Banfield on Monday night as the game entered the final stages.
Leading 1-0 thanks to a Jonas Aguirre goal scored shortly before half-time, Belgrano managed to preserve their fragile lead right up until the 95th minute.
However, Banfield left it until the final dying seconds to peg their opponents back with an equaliser of the truly ludicrous variety.
Seeking to slow down the play and wind down the clock, Belgrano ‘keeper Cesar Rigamonti claimed a high ball into his area and then held onto it for a while as players from both teams milled around and slowly filtered back up the pitch.
However, referee Fernando Espinoza took umbrage with the amount of time Rigamonti held the ball without releasing it and awarded an indirect freekick.
Rigamonti obliged and handed the ball over to Banfield forward Dario Cvitanich, who took the freekick quickly by squaring it for teammate Julio Carranza, who trickled a shot into the completely vacant net…
#TNTSports | La polémica de la noche: Rigamonti la tuvo 19 segundos y Espinoza cobró indirecto. Luego, Cvitanich tocó para Carranza y festejó Banfield pic.twitter.com/53VjAd8h6W
— TNT Sports LA (@TNTSportsLA) 23 October 2018
Sure, Rigamonti held the ball for 19 seconds, but roughly 15 of them were spent with at least one Banfield player stood in close proximity. If you’re going to pull anybody up, surely a verbal warning would suffice in that situation?
It’s the old letter-of-the-law versus reasonable human discretion debate again.
However, it all boils down to bad, needlessly over-officious refereeing in Pies’ book.