Actually, the matter is quite clear, "because football is easy," said Eintracht coach Oliver Glasner and reported on his equally simple conversation with referee Frank Willenborg after the 1-1 draw at Hertha BSC.

“The referee said: no penalty for him.

And I said: for me it is," said the Frankfurt coach, trying to appear as emotionless as possible.

How difficult it must have been for Glasner, however, can only be guessed at, as the Frankfurt team felt cheated of a possible victory in Berlin on Saturday.

In the last minute of the game, substitute Eintracht striker Rafael Borré rounded Hertha goalkeeper Oliver Christensen in the penalty area.

Borré touched something on his foot with his hand, which the striker used to take off too theatrically.

Willenborg immediately pointed to the point, but then things got complicated.

Suddenly, video assistant Markus Schmidt spoke up from Cologne, which, as is well known, he should only do if there is a clear wrong decision.

Schmidt's report meant that Willenborg was no longer so sure of his case.

He looked at the pictures of the action for a long time before taking back the penalty.

"I can understand the Eintracht frustration"

"I see in the pictures that there is a touch, but it is not the cause of the player falling.

For me it's a streak," said Osnabrück referee Willenborg.

In addition, the penalty whistle did not go with his “generous” game management.

As expected, there was little understanding on the Frankfurt side.

“The video evidence is there to correct clear wrong decisions.

But if you then have to watch what feels like ten minutes, it's no longer a bad decision for me, so I don't know what he was looking at," said Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp.

Even Hertha coach Sandro Schwarz understood the matter, even though he thought the final result was correct.

"I can understand Eintracht's frustration.

When the whistle is blown, we are talking about a clear wrong decision and whether it will be corrected.

Nevertheless, I think that not every physical contact has to be punished with a foul at the same time.

And so it wasn't a penalty for me in this situation," said Schwarz.

Either way, the emotional discussion about the possible penalty rounded off an exciting game.

Hertha and Frankfurt had played a balanced game, which, according to Schwarz, was "a fair result".

Above all, the Hertha coach was relieved to have prevented a worse false start after the end of the DFB Cup and the derby defeat against Union Berlin on the first day of the game.

However, both teams missed a number of great scoring chances, Wilfried Kanga and substitute Stevan Jovetic could have scored for Hertha to win.

But they didn't.

It remained 1-1 after goals from Suat Serdar (3rd minute) and Daichi Kamada (48th).