Declan Rice spoke after the Champions League final about a penalty not awarded to Arsenal by the ref (Image: TNT Sports)
Declan Rice says the penalty that wasn’t given against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final bore a striking resemblance to one awarded in their favour against Bayer Leverkusen. Noni Madueke and PSG defender Nuno Mendes became entangled inside the penalty area after locking arms with one another in the dying embers of extra-time, before PSG ran out 4-3 winners on penalties.
Arsenal‘s winger was at the heart of the incident Rice was refering to, after winning a spot-kick against the German outfit in the first leg of their round of 16 tie, when Leverkusen defender Malik Tillman fouled Madueke, and Kai Havertz scored the 89th-minute penalty to equalise against his former side. Two-and-a-half months on from that incident in Germany, Rice recalled it when discussing the similar shout they had during the final.
When quizzed about the incident involving Madueke and Mendes, Rice told TNT Sports after the match: “I’ve not seen it back yet. At first glance on the pitch, I think he’s ahead of Nuno Mendes, and if I’m looking back at the one we got against Bayer Leverkusen, it’s very, very similar. But, look, I’m not going to get into that. Obviously, I was gutted at the time because I thought the ref would have a look, but it was obviously not clear enough to be a pen. I thought it was, and so did our bench and our players.”
Rice was visibly incensed by the decision at the time and booked for protesting to referee Daniel Siebert. Mikel Arteta, meanwhile, remains convinced it should have been a penalty after reviewing the footage.
The Gunners boss, who also went into the book for his animated protests on the touchline, told TNT Sports: “I watched it back, and you can easily see a penalty. Especially when you see the penalties in the competition this season. The referee has made that decision; he made a different one with Mosquera, and yeah, that’s an important one.”
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Mikel Arteta watched the penalty incident back before conducting his interviews after the final loss (Image: TNT Sports)
Rice also offered a glimpse into Arteta’s state of mind and what went on behind closed doors following the heartbreaking exit. The midfielder added: “He’s gutted, yeah, he’s gutted. We’re all gutted, it’s a Champions League final, the emotions and the stakes are so high. It’s cruel, it’s cruel; that’s football.”
“But he’s just spoken about how much he loves us as a group. You know, this season, what we’ve done in terms of how we’ve been every single game 100 per cent, given absolutely everything, with everything that’s been thrown at us.
“I think we’ve come really far as a group this year. I think we’ve come really far, and this is only the start for this group again. Obviously, we got over the line in the Premier League, which was a dream come true. This would have been one step further. It wasn’t meant to be.
“But we keep building, you know, since I came to the club, it was a quarterfinal exit, semi-final, now, a final. So, look, we keep going, we keep staying positive, and that’s one thing about this group, this ain’t gonna define us.”