‘It's a disgrace’ — 4-time Serie A champion slams Liverpool forward

Former England and AC Milan coach Fabio Capello unleashed a scathing verdict on Liverpool’s dramatic Champions League win over Inter Milan, insisting the decisive penalty won by Florian Wirtz should never have been awarded.

Despite Dominik Szoboszlai’s late spot-kick sealing a much-needed 1-0 victory for Arne Slot’s struggling side, Capello argued that the call was “a scandal” and claimed VAR intervened unnecessarily.

Liverpool arrived in Milan with just one win from six matches, and after Ibrahima Konaté’s early goal was ruled out, they relied on a late swing of fortune.

Wirtz went down under a shirt pull from Alessandro Bastoni, prompting VAR to advise referee Felix Zwayer to award a penalty.

But Capello dismissed the incident entirely, declaring on Sky Sports Italia: “He lets himself fall, that’s a dive.” The 79-year-old was baffled by the interference from the replay booth, saying, “The referee saw everything. I don’t understand why VAR intervened here.”

He warned that the standard was dangerously low, saying, “If that's a foul, then we'll get a penalty after every corner kick… That was unfair. It's a disgrace to award such a penalty.”

Inter’s stars were equally furious after the final whistle, arguing that the bar for awarding penalties had sunk to an embarrassing level.

Piotr Zielinski was blunt, saying: “If we keep calling fouls like that, we'll only get penalties from now on.” On-loan defender Manuel Akanji echoed the sentiment, branding the decision “one of the weakest penalties” he had ever seen.

While Liverpool celebrated Szoboszlai’s match-winning strike and a rare clean-sheet victory, the fallout from the award dominated post-match discourse.

Inter felt aggrieved, Capello was incandescent, and the debate around VAR grew sharper, overshadowing what should have been a morale-boosting night for Slot’s under-pressure squad at the San Siro.