The French referee, Clement Turpin has been appointed as the official match referee for the second leg of the Europa League play-off which sees Manchester United face FC Barcelona at Old Trafford to decide which team secures the progression to the deeper stages of the competition.
The referee has previously officiated the second leg of the infamous 3-0 defeat of La Blaugrana at the stadium of Roma, where they blew a decisive 4-1 lead, and were eliminated from the competition due to the away goal rule which was still intact at that time.
FC Barcelona would like to put the horrors of the past aside before heading to a tense away fixture where winning is the only option, no matter what. The good news is that apart from the Roma debacle, the french official also regulated the game against Dynamo Kyiv last season which ended in a 1-0 win, and the match against Borussia Dortmund in the 2019-2020 season which the Catalan club won by a comfortable 3-1 margin.
He was elected as the best official in the 2021-2022 season. He was the main referee of the UEFA Champions League final last year too, where Real Madrid faced Liverpool which the former won to add another European trophy to their already humongous list of 13.
He has also officiated 3 matches for the Red devils- in which they gathered 1 win, and 1 loss and played one stalemate. The defeat arrived in the Europa League finals where Solksjaer’s United faced Unai Emery’s Villareal, which the yellow submarines won in the penalty shootout courtesy of a missed penalty from their goalkeeper David De Gea.
The referee seems like a fairly even official, and hopefully, he regulates the game in a balanced manner as these will be the penultimate 90 minutes of the tie.
