Atletico Madrid responded to Jose Mourinho after the Real Madrid manager complained about the officiating in the Madrid derby. Mourinho arrived at the press conference on Sunday with printed screenshots of two incidents, which he believed should have resulted in red cards for Atletico, and then accused the referees of key errors after Real lost 2-1.
Mourinho stated that the home side should have received two red cards in the first half. "Those were two clear red cards. Given the difficulties we faced playing with 11 against 10, we can only imagine how it would have looked with 11 against nine," said Mourinho. "Therefore, I will have to limit myself to hugging my players, who gave it their all and played the first half, showing great class and character, setting us up perfectly for a victory in the second half." He told the press: "We can skip the press conference because the story of the match is right here," showing the printed screenshots on A4 paper to the reporters.
On Monday, Atletico posted two messages on its X account. The first was a video showing a sheet of paper coming out of a printer with the caption #StopArbitralPersecutionNow, meaning "stop persecuting judges now". The second post showed a picture of Mourinho at the press conference with the same message. Atletico's response received two million views on X within two hours of the post.
The match was officiated by Ortiz Arias, and the report published on Real's website stated that the derby was decided by "terrible officiating". Mourinho's side were without defender Dean Huijsen, who was sent off early in the second half with the score at 0-0, after falling to the ground following a challenge on Giuliano Simeone just inside the penalty area. The defeat was Real's second of the season, following a 1-0 loss to Real Betis in September.
Atletico were managed by Diego Simeone. Asked to respond to Mourinho's criticism of the officiating, he said he always respected other people's opinions. "We understand that we are in a privileged position with great public attention, as managers, and whether it is Mourinho, Hansi Flick, Manuel Pellegrini, myself or anyone else, we must be careful what we say," Simeone said. "We must know how to respect others, referees, colleagues. And when someone crosses that line of respect, it is not right — you cannot cross that line."
