Referee appointment for Bayern clash appears good news for Arsenal | OneFootball

Experienced Eredivisie referee Danny Makkelie is set to officiate Arsenal’s match away to Bayern Munich on Wednesday, following the controversies of the quarter-final’s first leg.

Referee Glenn Nyberg took charge of Arsenal’s match against Bayern Munich last Tuesday, his first ever Champions League knockout game, and he was involved in a few controversial incidents.

Though the penalty awarded to Bayern Munich went largely uncontested by all, the later decision to ignore a potential penalty for Arsenal after a clear trip on Bukayo Saka was much more unpopular.

Then there was the decision not to award Bayern a penalty, after an apparent mix-up between David Raya and Gabriel Magalhaes led to the Arsenal defender picking up the ball in the penalty area. Thomas Tuchel was critical, though Mikel Arteta praised the decision as a correct application of ‘common sense’.

“The law says to use common sense and whether you take an advantage from that situation, which there isn’t an advantage (in this case),” Arteta said afterwards.

Minutes before that incident, Harry Kane only received a yellow card for a deliberate elbow in the face of Gabriel, with former referee Keith Hackett arguing it was a “nailed-on red card”.

A Champions League quarter-final between two huge clubs perhaps wasn’t the ideal time for an inexperienced referee to get his first knockout game, and the good news is that the referee for the second leg has a lot more experience under his belt.

UEFA have confirmed that Danny Makkelie will take the game, with fellow Dutchmen Hessel Steegstra and Jan de Vries acting as his assistants, Rob Dieperink as the Video Assistant Referee, Clay Ruperti as the assistant VAR, and Sander Van Der Eijk as the fourth official.

Makkelie already has 46 Champions League games under his belt, including nine round-of-16 games, three quarter-finals, and two semi-finals. He’s been taking charge of Champions League games for long enough that he’s already refereed Arsenal in the competition, all the way back in 2016.

That 2-0 group win over Basel was one of two matches Makkelie has refereed involving Arsenal, with the other being the 4-2 Europa League semi-final win away to Villarreal in 2019.

With any luck, Wednesday’s game will pass without any controversial incidents. But should Makkelie be called upon to make a big call, you’d hope his experience will help him to make it correctly.