Who is Szymon Marciniak, the referee for Man City vs Real Madrid, Champions League semi-final second leg?

Poland’s Szymon Marciniak will be the match referee for today’s Champions League semi-final second leg between Manchester City and Real Madrid. With Inter awaiting in June’s final in Istanbul, City and Madrid face off at the Etihad Stadium after a 1-1 draw in last week’s first leg at the Bernabéu.

A referee with a World Cup final on his resumé

This will be the seventh Champions League match this season for Marciniak, after he oversaw: Atlético Madrid-Porto (2-1), Barcelona-Inter (3-3), Dinamo Zagreb-Milan (0-4), Marseille-Tottenham (1-2), Porto-Inter Milan (0-0) and Napoli’s 1-1 draw with AC Milan in the quarter-finals. The Plock native also had the honour of refereeing Argentina’s 2022 World Cup final win over France last December.

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Marciniak has refereed five games involving Real Madrid in the Champions League, with Los Blancos winning two, drawing two and losing once. The last time the 42-year-old officiated a Madrid game was at the Bernabéu against Chelsea in the quarter-finals last season (Madrid lost on the night but advanced on aggregate). He also oversaw a 0-3 win over Sheriff and a 1-1 draw against Tottenham in the 2017/18 season.

Prior to those games, Madrid drew 2-2 with Dortmund in the 2016/17 season and beat Roma (2-0) the previous year under the watchful gaze of the Pole.

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Marciniak’s assistant referees will be fellow Poles Pawel Sokolnicki and Tomasz Listkiewicz, and the fourth official will be the Romanian István Kovács. Tomasz Kwiatkowski and Bartosz Frankowski, also from Poland, will be the VAR officials.

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