The penalty within half-time

What happened?

On 16 April 2018, a Bundesliga match between Mainz and Freiburg took place. After 45 minutes, the referee blew the whistle and the players, in particular the Freiburg players, had already left the pitch and had gone to the locker room.

Suddenly, the referee called back the teams and gave a penalty for Mainz after the video assistant referee (VAR) apparently had contacted him in order to inform him that, shortly before halftime, a Freiburg player had committed a handball in the penalty area (which actually was correct and worth to be sanctioned with a penalty, but...

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