It was a turbulent 3:2 victory for Alemannia Aachen against Waldhof Mannheim. The imperial city team was lucky, says former referee Babak Rafati.

Alemannia Aachen celebrated its first home victory last weekend – and how. After a wild 90 minutes plus stoppage time, the scoreboard showed a turbulent 3:2 win against Waldhof Mannheim. After a weak start by the home team, it was Niklas Castelle who somewhat surprisingly put the Kaiserstadt team in the lead (38th minute). But the visitors from SV Waldhof Mannheim came out of the locker room much stronger. Kennedy Okpala gave them a rude awakening, equalizing after the restart (52′). Masca completed the double strike after a cross from Sascha Voelcke (56′). In the closing stages, Emmanuel Eweka accepted a gift from Julian Rieckmann (83′), who lost the ball far too easily. Then Aachen went all out—and indeed: Lars Gindorf redeemed the Alemannia fans, scoring in the 90th minute to make it 3-2!

However, former referee Babak Rafati, who regularly analyzes controversial decisions for “Liga3online,” has something to complain about. It concerns Eweka’s goal to make it 2-2. In a header duel with Aachen’s Danilo Wiebe beforehand, Mannheim’s Masca lost his shoe and remained on the ground. The subsequent attack led to the 2-2 goal.

“In the aerial duel between Wiebe and Masca, everything was in accordance with the rules, but the defender kicked the attacker in the heel from behind, pulling off his shoe. That is obviously a foul, even if it was unintentional, but that is not relevant in the case of a foul, so a free kick should have been awarded. Therefore, it was the wrong decision not to interrupt the game and allow the subsequent goal,” said Rafati. Masca was once again at the center of attention: early on, he had supposedly scored for Waldhof, but the goal was disallowed. “Whether the ball actually crossed the goal line in its entirety or not cannot be assessed with certainty from the available TV images,” said Rafati. However, Rafati is clear that Mannheim’s Lukas Klünter should have received a second yellow card for pulling on a jersey instead of just having the advantage applied: “There was a challenge between Klünter and Wriedt in midfield, which constituted a foul. However, the referee played advantage, and this advantage was played out. As the foul could be interpreted as a tactical foul and the advantage had its effect, a discount was applied so that no card had to be shown. It was the right decision to rule that way.”