Wednesday night will witness the climax of the touted Manchester City-Real Madrid UEFA Champions League quarter-finals second-leg tie. Man City will be looking to make the best of their home advantage at the Etihad Stadium and knockout Madrid for the third time in five years. Pep Guardiola‘s men got a boost for the same, as star defender Kyle Walker is fit to play in the Madrid tie. Turns out, the refereeing panel is also giving more hope to City and taking the same away from Los Blancos. Notably, leading the refereeing entourage is Italy’s Daniele Orsato, who has historically anguished Real Madrid with his decisions.

French referee François Letexier oversaw the first leg between the 14x UCL champions and the defending champions, which ended in a 3-3 draw. He drew four yellow cards that night, with two each for City and the Blancos. These players now risk UCL semi-final contention, considering Orsato is prone to making controversial calls.

Who are the five referees that will oversee the City-Madrid tie?

An all-Italian refereeing entourage will take to the Etihad on Wednesday to officiate the decisive tie between the Spanish leaders and the Sky Blues. Daniele Orsato, the main referee, has overseen a staggering 599 matches across elite competitions such as the FIFA World Cup and the UCL, among others. Orsato has pulled out 2807 yellow and 70 red cards in his career. Wednesday’s quarter-final clash will be Orsato’s 54th UEFA Champions League game as a referee. He has notably officiated six other games in the ongoing UCL.

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Fellow Italians Ciro Carbone and Allessandro Giallatini will assist Daniele Orsato. Massimiliano Irati will be the game’s VAR referee. Paolo Valeri will assist Irati. Maurizio Mariani will accompany this Italian entourage as the game’s fourth referee. Anyhow, Orsato’s potential clashes with Madrid stars will probably be the highlight of the match. And here’s why.

Daniele Orsato’s controversial calls in Real Madrid games

Last year, the Real Madrid entourage got immensely anguished after learning Daniele Orsato would officiate their away clash against Chelsea in the UCL QF. This is because Orsato gave the Spanish side a déjà vu of their 2020 RO16 clash versus Manchester City. Then Orsato had given a late penalty for Dani Carvajal’s knock on Raheem Sterling. Besides, the Italian referee reduced Madrid to 10 men by red-carding their defensive anchor Sergio Ramos for hauling back Gabriel Jesus. Meanwhile, Vinicius Jr. claimed Gabriel Jesus scored an early goal by committing a foul on Los Blancos defenders.

The Brazilian striker lamented that Orsato did not even bother to check the VAR before taking calls. Besides this, the Meringues midfielder Luka Modric once felt Daniele Orsato had taken a wrong call in the Argentina-Croatia semi-final in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Modric claimed Orsato wrongly denied Croatia of a corner kick. Right after this denial, Argentina scored a goal off a Lionel Messi penalty after a counterattack. Therefore, besides battling Pep Guardiola’s elite squad, the men in white will have to push away their past demons of crossing paths with Daniele Orsato.