My POV of the penalty. Ill try to be as unbiased as possible
Ill star from this premise from Pirlo
"It was a classic interpretable incident, you could give it and you could not give it. And when it’s 10 seconds from the end, if you’re smart, you don’t whistle and let the teams play for everything in extra-time"
Adding to this, ill say one thing. From certain angles, speacially from the front and the back of the players (i think the refs POV was behind Benatia)...the action seems very aggresive from benatia and seems like a hard blow is given to lucas.
BUT, in the camera behind the goal (more or less buffons POV), you can clearly see that Lucas is simulating the fall when benatia is centimeters near him. Lucas does nothing to continue the play...he doesnt try to shoot or head the ball, he does nothing but to wait for Benatia con tact him to do the full simulation.
Look very closely at Lucas´s legs. Even before Benatia touches him, his legs suddenly turn off and he starts falling. It was clearly a deliberate and planned simulation.
In the head of the moment is VERY difficult to the naked eye to catch this, specially if you are not in the perfect position to see the simulation. Its in fact impossible.
This a very common situation in football (teh simulation, every player try to win advantages for their team at all cost).
The only, the ONLY way the referee could be sure of what was going on... is to carefully see the replay from all angles. and the only way this catastrophe could have veen prevented, was with VAR.