Pep Guardiola sent off after Manchester City robbed of goal vs. Liverpool (Video)

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was sent off at halftime of City’s Champions League quarterfinal second leg against Liverpool for arguing an incorrect offside call that robbed his team of a goal.

The hosts had stormed out to a 1-0 lead, and right before halftime, they should have had a second.

Leroy Sane had the ball in the back of the Liverpool net, but the goal was ruled out for offside. On first look, it appeared to be the correct call, because Sane was behind goalkeeper Loris Karius and therefore in an offside position when the ball was played toward him:

But replays showed that the ball didn’t touch a City player on its way back toward Sane. It came back off James Milner. Sane, therefore, couldn’t have been offside.

The assistant referee, who had (rightly) raised his flag to notify the center ref that Sane was in an offside position, appeared to be trying to communicate with the center ref. He should have been asking the center ref the question: Did the ball come off the City player, Gabriel Jesus? Or Milner?

The referee either didn’t have an answer, or had the wrong one. And he didn’t have video review at his disposal to correct his error. Because he didn’t, City went into the second half needing two goals to send the game to extra time, as opposed to one, after its 3-0 first-leg defeat at Anfield.

But before it went into halftime, Guardiola remonstrated with the referee, who sent the Man City manager to the stands:

Mo Salah scored an early-second-half goal to pull Liverpool level on the night and leave City needing four goals to overturn the deficit.