Mourinho: The referee lacked experience, he's only done tiny games | OneFootball

José Mourinho spoke to the media in the press conference after Atlético de Madrid 2-1 Real Madrid, a match corresponding to Matchday 6 of LaLiga EA Sports. The coach harshly criticized Ortiz Arias’s performance, and spoke about Huijsen’s sending-off and Los Blancos’ chances of winning the league title.

The refereeing

"We could save ourselves the press conference because the story of the match is here (he shows printed photographs of the challenges by Baena and Kang-in Lee). They are two clear red cards. The difficulties we had afterwards, eleven against ten, we can imagine what 50 minutes with eleven against nine would have been like. So I have to limit myself to embracing my players, who gave everything. They played a first half of great class and personality. And the match could perfectly have been won in the second half. And then, the ones who should be happy... obviously the Atlético people, because they won the points, but the ones who should be happy are the Refereeing Appointments Committee, because everything was very strange. The first thing is that a week before the match it was already known who the referee would be when, I’m told, it is normally 24 hours beforehand. And a week before, it was already known who the referee was. Then, they appoint a referee who, at 41 years old, has had no international experience at all... well, it won’t be because he is a great referee. Then, the poor guy came here and couldn’t handle the pressure, the kind I call 1980s pressure and that you hardly ever see today. And then Mr. Trujillo, who was on VAR, called him over for the first red card and I think he didn’t call him for the second one, which was even clearer than the first... This Mr. Trujillo has quite a history as VAR in Real Madrid matches. And without going any further, last season: Real Sociedad in the Cup, Osasuna, Girona... He is a VAR with a lot of history, and if the poor referee... you could say he lacked the experience and stature to come to a derby... this gentleman feels no pressure. Because there, in Las Rozas, there is no pressure. Or there is, and we don’t know about it. I would very much like to leave here... obviously with the win, but after losing I would really like to leave here without having to speak. I’ve been here for three months and I think you’ve already understood that I’m not really about going in this direction. But... two reds against Elche, even though we won afterwards. Two reds today... (sighs)... it’s already a bit more difficult. This combination, a poor referee who has only handled little matches and the VAR gentleman, who has a big history. So congratulations to the Refereeing Appointments Committee."

Do you believe in the integrity of the refereeing group?

"Huijsen’s sending-off, I admit I still haven’t seen it on VAR... sorry, on the iPad. I still haven’t seen it. And it was too far away for me to judge it. I don’t know, I don’t know. Some people in the dressing room are telling me the foul starts outside the box, and if that’s the case, it should be a foul, a sending-off and 0-0. If it’s inside, it’s a penalty and if there is an obvious act of pulling the shirt, then yes, it would be a sending-off. But all that happened in the second half. And in the first half we are talking about a derby of eleven against nine. The second half was eleven against ten and the difficulties were clear. The players had to give everything they had just to compete, so imagine eleven against nine. There are no miracles in football. Eleven against nine... we can already imagine how it ends. But honestly, I haven’t seen Dean’s incident yet. Not yet."

How do you assess the first stretch of LaLiga?

"Obviously we want to be first, not second, third, fourth or fifth. We want to have more points. Obvious, obvious. But under normal conditions, and this is not about how it starts but how it ends, under normal conditions, and we are talking about the end of September, when there is still so much left to play... but when... and I don’t want to go there, because I’ve already gone too far and I don’t want to do it anymore. But the things we’ve seen in recent weeks... here in this stadium... the goal disallowed against Osasuna is laughable, the penalty in San Sebastián is laughable, Barcelona’s penalty is laughable, the non-sending-off against Athletic Bilbao with this gentleman who was very nice (he points behind him), involving a boy who is a great player... these are things that add up. I thought I was finding a different league from the one I left. They told me no, and they explained to me why it wasn’t different from the league I left here years ago. But here we are. We are going to fight. Right now, the boys leave sad, obviously, but they do so with their coach’s embrace, because I have a lot of respect for what they feel on the pitch. I respect very much that it is not easy to be on the pitch in the way they have been. If we want to remember Elche, the two sendings-off for Elche... no, but in the first minute, the yellow card for Diomande... what our players feel on the pitch is not normal. But I liked my team as a team. Very much in the first half and in the second... obviously very, very, very difficult. Very difficult to keep the ball, to stop the possession of a good team with an extra player. But I liked the pride, the determination. And that is a good feeling for me. It is a good feeling not to be disappointed with my players, not to have anything to reproach them for. Within the negative of the result, it is a positive feeling for me."

Is LaLiga going to be very complicated?

"If they leave us alone, calm, and let us compete on equal terms with everyone else, there is still a long way to go, a long way to go. I don’t want to go too far and say this is something planned. I don’t want to think that, but rather that they simply made mistakes, just as a coach or a player makes mistakes. I want to think that the refereeing committee made a mistake. (Silence) Poor people, they made a mistake and put in a 41-year-old who had never been in a situation like this and another one who has a very ridiculous record against Real Madrid. They made a mistake, that’s all."

Is the league stained by the 'Negreira case'?

"Negreira isn’t there anymore, right? Or is he still there? Ah, if he isn’t there, then it isn’t stained by Negreira. If he’s gone already."

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.