Pep Guardiola Says Referee 'Likes to Be Special' After UCL Sending off

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola criticised referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz after his side's UEFA Champions League exit against Liverpool on Tuesday, saying the official "likes to be special." 

Guardiola was sent to the stands at half-time during their 2-1 loss to the Reds, as he was clearly unhappy with the decision to wrongly rule out Leroy Sane's goal. Had it stood, City, seeking to overturn a 3-0 deficit from the first leg, would've been 2-0 up at half-time.

"I said it was a goal," Guardiola revealed after the game, per ESPN. "I didn't insult him. I was polite, I was correct. But Mateu Lahoz is a special guy. He likes to be different, he likes to be special...when everybody sees the things, he's going to decide the opposite."

In addition to his complaints about the officiating on Tuesday, the City boss also outlined a number of decisions that went against his side in the first leg.

Mohamed Salah's opening goal in the tie appeared to be offside, while a late strike from Gabriel Jesus at Anfield was ruled out despite the Brazilian looking onside.

"It's a penalty from [Andrew] Robertson on Raheem Sterling right in front of the fourth official," Guardiola added. "Of course that has an influence."

It would be fair to say Grup14's Rafael Hernandez doesn't rate Lahoz highly based on his time in Spain:

Although plenty of those calls are up for debate, the decision to rule out Sane's goal was a head-scratcher; he was deemed offside despite James Milner kneeing the ball towards his own goal. Sports journalist Mootaz Chehade provided a snap of the incident:

Although Liverpool scored in the second half to give City a mountain to climb, a second goal for the Manchester outfit at that point would have put a totally different complexion on the contest.

As relayed by BT Sport commentator Ian Darke, with VAR implemented in some leagues across Europe, this is an incident that could have been cleared up by the technology:

Throughout the course of the contest Lahoz made strange decisions, while his forthright approach to dealing with the players was also striking. Kieran Canning of Agence France-Presse commented on the character of the La Liga official:

Although there's no doubt City didn't get the breaks over the course of the two matches against Liverpool, regardless of the refereeing it's tough to argue against the Merseyside outfit being worthy semi-finalists.

In truth, City lost this tie in the first leg at Anfield, when they put in a terrible first-half performance and found themselves three goals down. No away goal always meant they were in a precarious position in the second leg too.