UEFA announced the referees for the upcoming return legs of the Champions League play-offs earlier today. The Polish referee Szymon Marciniak has been assigned to AC Milan’s game against Feyenoord.
Milan lost the first leg against the Dutch side by the odd goal and thus need to overturn a deficit at San Siro on Tuesday. There is optimism among the players, as highlighted by Joao Felix, but they will still have to do a whole lot better than what we saw against Verona yesterday.
As announced by UEFA earlier today, the experienced referee Szymon Marciniak has been assigned to Milan-Feyenoord. He will be assisted by an all-Polish officiating team, aside from the assistant VAR referee who is German.
Marciniak has officiated five Milan games before, with a record of one win, two draws and two defeats for the Rossoneri. The games in question are Liverpool away (2021, 3-2 defeat), Dinamo Zagreb away (2022. 4-0 win), Napoli away (2023, 1-1 draw), Dortmund away (2023, 0-0 draw) and Roma away (2024, 2-1 defeat).
It remains to be seen if Milan will be able to improve their record with Marciniak as the head referee. It would be a massive failure not to get through to the round of 16, especially considering a win against Dinamo Zagreb was all they needed to avoid the play-off altogether.
