Conte sorry for all the tension

Posted Sunday, February 26, 2012 by ESPN

Juventus coach Antonio Conte has apologised for the ugly scenes at half-time during his side's 1-1 draw with title rivals AC Milan on Saturday.

The Bianconeri kept their Serie A bid on track with a late Alessandro Matri strike after Antonio Nocerino had put Milan ahead in the 14th minute.

The game was overshadowed by some odd refereeing decisions which saw Milan's Sulley Muntari have a goal disallowed midway through the first half while Juve's Matri also had a goal wrongly ruled out.

With tension during the game running high, both sets of players clashed at the half-time whistle.

Second-placed Juve trail Milan by one point but have a game in hand on the leaders but Conte was disappointed that the marquee match-up in Italy over the weekend was marred by poor officiating and scuffles between the players at the San Siro.

"These things happen, and I'm sorry that this match had too much tension," Conte told Sky Sport Italia.

"There was not a beautiful atmosphere for the purists.

"Too many things happened that were not football-related, and I did not like them.

"The best thing was the game itself, the rest should be improved in the future. I, for one, must also improve."

Conte added that he believed both disallowed goals cancelled each other out, and dismissed claims that Muntari's header, which would've put Milan 2-0 up at the time, held more significance to the final outcome of the game.

"There were two serious technical errors on two goals from Matri and Muntari. These are errors that can occur, but they are both even," he said.

"We hope that errors can always be balanced for and against all teams come the end of the season, but I find unacceptable to say that a goal is more regular than the other."

"We must credit Milan because they played at a very high level for an hour, putting us under intense pressure.

"But it was unlikely that they could sustain it for the entire match and we were good at exploiting them, aided by the players I brought on.

"The people watched a great Milan team, although they missed many important players. We were both good and lucky, but there is still much to do for the Scudetto."

Juve ended the game with 10 men after Arturo Vidal was sent off in the 88th minute for a challenge on Mark van Bommel.