Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid played out another enthralling encounter on Saturday, as they drew 1-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu. As expected, there was also a fair amount of controversial moments, with two in particular grabbing the headlines.
The first flashpoint occurred midway through the first half. Upon contesting for a ball, Atleti midfielder Pablo Barrios had his ankle stood on by Real Madrid counterpart Dani Ceballos, who was shown a yellow card for the infringement by referee Cesar Soto Grado.
However, ex-referee Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez told Cadena SER (via Diario AS) that he believes this call was wrong, and that Real Madrid should have been reduced to 10 men.
“It’s a red card, because Ceballos doesn’t go to the ball. He is going to step on him clearly and turns his right leg to step. For me, VAR should have intervened because it’s a red card.”
Iturralde Gonzalez also spoke on the decision to award a penalty to Atletico Madrid, which led to Julian Alvarez opening the scoring. On this occasion, he believes that Soto Grado made the correct decision.
“It’s a penalty. The CTA, which is the one that dictates the referee’s criteria, says that stepping on an opponent inside the area in a dispute for the ball is a penalty. A few hours ago, Athletic’s 1-0 (against Girona) came because of another stomp.
“Here we cannot talk about a residual penalty, since due to that stomp the Atletico player cannot continue in the attacking phase. The ball was still inside the area and in the possession of Simeone’s team and after that stomp you leave the player with no chance of finishing.”
On this basis, Atletico Madrid can perhaps count themselves unlucky that they did not have a man advantage for the vast majority of proceedings at the Bernabeu. Nevertheless, they will be pleased with the result, where Real Madrid will probably consider it to be two points dropped.
