The arbitration performance in the classic between Barcelona and Real Madrid has not pleased within Barcelona and even the Barça president, Joan Laporta, has asked the referees for explanations. According to the referee of the match, José María Sánchez Martínez, in the minutes, the Catalan leader has broken into the arbitration locker room after the match.
“Once the match is over and the referee team finds us inside the locker room, the president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta Estruch, accesses it, repeatedly requesting explanations about some situations in the match. Given these events, he was invited to leave the arbitration locker room, without further incident, ”writes the Murcian referee.
According to sources from FC Barcelona, Laporta asked the referee with the utmost respect for explanations about the criteria applied when reviewing one play and not another. The same sources assure that the referee replied that, according to his criteria, the play he mentioned was not worth reviewing.
Sánchez Martínez failed to point out a clear penalty on Lewandowski in the second half, which was shot down by Carvajal inside the area without the action being even reviewed by the VAR, despite the protests of the azulgranas. He did indicate the maximum penalty in favor of the Madrid team in the last minutes of the game, when Barça had managed to close the gap with the 2-1. A stomp by Eric Garcia on Rodrygo that the white footballer himself would be in charge of transforming into the 3 -1 that would sentence the duel.
The arbitration performance has been commented by the protagonists after the match. "He stepped on me, then I was sure it was a penalty because there is VAR, so I waited," Rodrygo told the DAZN cameras. While on the other side, Jules Koundé said: "The penalty? It's very little [contact] I think, you have to see it repeated, but with the 2-1 it was difficult for us because maybe we would have had a chance to tie the game”.
