Real Madrid head coach Jose Mourinho held up printed pictures of two tackles in front of the media after his team’s 2-1 La Liga defeat to Atletico Madrid, using the post-match news conference to launch a scathing attack on officials.
Jose was furious that Atletico defender Cristian Romero avoided a red card for a stamp on Jude Bellingham. He also objected to a challenge by Lee Kang-in on Federico Valverde, both incidents coming before Real were reduced to 10 men five minutes after half-time.
“We could skip the press conference because the story of the match is right here,” Mourinho said, holding up the images at the start of a rant that ran close to five minutes.
“Those were two clear red cards. The difficulties we’ve faced since the sending-off, 11 against 10, well, we can imagine what 50 minutes of 11 against nine would have been like if justice had been done.”
Real defender Dean Huijsen was sent off for bringing down Giuliano Simeone inside the penalty area as the last man, and Alejandro Grimaldo converted the resulting spot kick. Jonathan David doubled Atletico’s lead six minutes later.
Antonio Rudiger headed in a late free kick to pull one back, but Real could not find an equaliser.
Mourinho said he could only “hug” his players after a first half he described as “full of class and great character,” then turned his fire on referee Miguel Angel Ortiz Arias and the officials who appointed him.
“They’ve put a referee, aged 41, with no international experience. It’s certainly not because he’s a great referee,” Mourinho said.
“Then the poor chap has come here and hasn’t been able to cope with the pressure, and it really is intense pressure. I call it ’80s-style pressure’ here in this stadium, which you hardly ever see these days.”
Asked about Real Madrid trailing Barcelona by six points in the table, Mourinho gave a pointed response.
“If they just leave us in peace and let us compete on a level playing field with everyone else, we’ve still got a long way to go,” he said. “I don’t want to go so far as to say this was set up. I want to believe that they simply made a mistake.”
Atletico Madrid won the derby 2-1, moving above Real Madrid in the table, while Mourinho’s side must now regroup as they continue to chase Barcelona at the top of La Liga.
