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Referee Nicola Rizzoli says Italian football still has a lot to learn about sporting culture after revealing how gracious Barcelona were in defeat to Atletico Madrid in their recent Champions League quarterfinal. The Italian referee was criticised for several of his decisions during that match, but he told La Gazzetta dello Sport that players and bosses of Barcelona had all paid him a visit afterwards, and not shared the same rhetoric as the Catalan newspapers the following day. "The players and directors of Barcelona came into our dressing room to compliment us," Rizzoli said. "They did not protest at all. They said '[Atletico] deserved to go through.' This is what you call sporting culture. We just don't know what this is in Italy." Rizzoli referred to an incident in the Turin derby earlier this year in which he showed Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci a yellow card when he appeared to go almost head-to-head with the official. Napoli reacted with astonishment when their forward Gonzalo Higuain was banned for three matches -- latter reduced to two on appeal -- for pushing a referee after being sent off, suggesting that Juve receive special treatment from officials. According to Rizzoli, it is just this lack of sporting culture and the growth of social media which led to all the controversy. "Let's go into detail about Bonucci -- it was I who went over to him because he was protesting with the additional referee," Rizzoli explained. "I led him away and since he was continuing to say it was not a penalty, I booked him. "Nobody on the field, not even a Torino player, felt that there was something wrong," he said. "That all came from social media afterwards. The whole Bonucci controversy really frustrated me, because it was created out of nothing."
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