Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel slams referee’s behaviour after final whistle v Real Madrid

Thomas Tuchel slammed referee Szymon Marciniak for “smiling and laughing” with Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti after his Chelsea side were knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday night.

Tuchel’s men produced a magnificent performance in the Bernabeu and found themselves 3-0 up by the 75th minute thanks to goals from Mason Mount, Antonio Rudiger and Timo Werner.

But when Rodrygo scored from Luka Modric’s extraordinary outside-of-the-boot assist, the quarter-final tie went to extra-time with the aggregate scores level at 4-4.

And it was Karim Benzema, scorer of a hat-trick at Stamford Bridge last week, who netted the winner to send Madrid through to the semi-finals at Chelsea’s expense.

Tuchel was angry that Marciniak failed to check whether a goal scored by Marcos Alonso in the 62nd minute should have stood.

The Spaniard’s goal was ruled out by VAR for handball and Tuchel told reporters, per The Mirror, after the match: “I’m very disappointed for the referee that he did not check … but that’s what you get when you play Real Madrid in the Champions League. We had a huge deficit to overcome.”

Tuchel was also shown a yellow card by the referee in stoppage time:

This ref really angered Tuchel! pic.twitter.com/9l5bLqHLK7

And when the German coach saw the same match official and Ancelotti laughing together after the final whistle, he was less than impressed.

“I was disappointed that the referee had a good time with Carlo,” Tuchel said in his post-match press conference.

“I know that Carlo is a gentleman and a nice guy but when I wanted to go and say thank you, I saw him smiling and laughing loud with the opponent’s coach.

“I think this is the very, very wrong time to do this after the final whistle, 126 minutes of a