Buffon: Referee 'has a trashcan in place of a heart'
Warning: Story contains coarse language
Gianluigi Buffon didn't hold back when talking with reporters following Juventus' dramatic Champions League elimination, saying Michael Oliver's decision to award Real Madrid a late penalty and send him off was not the behaviour of a human being.
Related: Ronaldo's injury-time penalty cancels out Juventus' inspired comeback
The 40-year-old goalkeeper specifically said the referee "has a trashcan in place of a heart," as translated by Paolo Bandini for theScore, and made a few suggestions about what Oliver should have been doing with his time rather than overseeing the quarter-final fixture.
"You need personality to referee a game like this. If you don't have personality, you better watch the game from the stands with your wife and your kids while eating fries," he continued, as reported by The Independent's Miguel Delaney.
"What did I say to him while I was protesting? I could say everything in that moment because when you take such decision in a certain moment of the game it means you don't know what sport is.
"A human being cannot decide the elimination of a team with such decision. When I don't feel that I'm good enough, I put myself in a corner. He should do the same. It's a matter of sensibility. It means you don't know where you are, which teams are playing, you don't know shit.
"If you have the cynicism to award a penalty like that in the 93rd minute, you are not a man, you are an animal."
Buffon on Spanish radio, doesn't sound like he's calming down - "You have to be a murderer to make the last two decisions the referee made."
— Rik Sharma (@riksharma_) April 11, 2018
Buffon admitted in the lead-up to the game that it could be his last appearance in the Champions League. After 117 appearances and 50 clean sheets in the competition, he would depart an undoubted legend of the Champions League despite not winning it. However, he would also leave under a very dark cloud following Wednesday's dismissal and subsequent tirade.
Related: Buffon's quip to end career in Zidane-esque rage comes back to bite him
It could have been so different. Juventus had quashed a 3-0 goal deficit with a Mario Mandzukic brace and a scrambled conversion by Blaise Matuidi, but it's instead Real Madrid advancing to an eighth consecutive semi-final after Cristiano Ronaldo's much-debated 97th-minute penalty at the Santiago Bernabeu.