(REUTERS)

Bayern is having a lot of trouble digesting its elimination in the Champions League semifinal against PSG and took aim at the match's referee.

In France and across Europe, PSG commands admiration for its collective strength, polished game, youth, and fire, which have brought all opponents to their knees over the last 18 months.

Bayern Munich, after losing the first leg 5-4, saw another side of PSG, more united and combative, in the return leg, for a 1-1 draw that sends Luis Enrique's players to the Champions League final, once again.

But this result was strongly contested during and immediately after the match, even though the criticism gradually faded.

Nevertheless, the anger of the Bavarian executives, who notably criticized Joao Pinheiro for his inexperience and his bad decisions on the penalty not called and the red card that Nuno Mendes could have received, was exaggerated in the eyes of their Parisian counterparts.

In L'Equipe, it is emphasized that even if the Bayern players and executives cry scandal, it is quietly amusing within PSG. This little phrase, uttered "in the high spheres of the Parisian club," simply demonstrates that defeats in close matches are very often attributed to the referee.

"Against Real Madrid (in the quarterfinal return leg), they managed to get Camavinga sent off by putting insane pressure on the referee. There, they didn't succeed...," a PSG source says, just to remind that above all, the referee did not let himself be influenced by the reprimands of Bayern players, led by Joshua Kimmich.

The last Champions League matches have, in any case, demonstrated that the rule that only the captain is authorized to speak to the referee or that players no longer have the right to demand that the referee show cards no longer exists.