José Mourinho wanted to talk about the Madrid derby that might have been. The Madrid derby had become, in his view, a dispute over two missed dismissals. In his telling, Atlético should have lost two players before halftime and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to survive with nine men.
The match that actually happened ended in a 2-1 Real Madrid defeat, with his own team reduced to 10. Early in his second spell at the club, Mourinho arrived at the Metropolitano’s press room carrying pictures of Cristian Romero’s challenge on Jude Bellingham and Lee Kang-in’s on Federico Valverde. Both, he insisted, deserved red cards.
“We could skip the press conference because the story of the match is here,” he said. But the incidents on his printout had been handled differently. In the 35th minute, referee Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias initially booked Bellingham, then consulted the monitor, rescinded that yellow and booked Romero instead. Mourinho’s objection was to the punishment, not the absence of a review.
Nine minutes later, Lee’s challenge brought neither a card nor a monitor visit. Madrid subsequently diagnosed Valverde with severe trauma to his left ankle and said further tests would follow. The bulletin didn’t give a recovery timetable.
Soon after halftime, Dean Huijsen brought down Giuliano Simeone. His initial yellow was upgraded to red following a review, and Alejandro Grimaldo converted the penalty. Jonathan David added Atlético’s second before Antonio Rüdiger’s late header.
The Madrid derby grievance behind the gesture
Spain’s referees’ committee reportedly considered Lee’s challenge worthy of a red card, regarded Huijsen’s dismissal as correct and was more forgiving of the Romero decision. That was an account of its internal assessment, not a formal ruling validating Mourinho’s entire case.
Mourinho himself acknowledged a gap: he hadn’t watched Huijsen’s incident back. He said he’d been too far away to judge it and was relying on the dressing room’s account of where the foul began. He accepted that an obvious shirt pull inside the area could warrant a penalty and dismissal, but returned to the first-half decisions.
A photograph makes contact easy to isolate and harder to place in context. IFAB’s VAR protocol directs officials to use normal-speed footage when judging a challenge’s intensity. A frozen frame can establish where contact occurred without conveying its force. And no monitor visit doesn’t necessarily mean no VAR check; checks don’t always lead to an on-field review.
Diego Simeone disputed both Mourinho’s explanation of the defeat and his treatment of the officials. Atlético’s coach said his team had controlled the game before and after the dismissal, and called for respect toward referees. His side had created chances before gaining the extra man: David missed an early opportunity, while Thibaut Courtois saved from Álex Baena and Grimaldo before the penalty incident.
Mourinho has presented exhibits after victories, too. Following Madrid’s 1-0 win over Sevilla in December 2010, he brought a sheet listing 13 alleged refereeing errors to his press conference. He complained that he was being left to defend the team while others at the club remained silent.
In September 2024, the disputed decision was an offside call against Edin Džeko. Coaching Fenerbahçe, Mourinho positioned a laptop so a television camera could show the image he believed supported his objection. He was booked; his side beat Antalyaspor 2-0. Winning hadn’t removed his willingness to make a public exhibit of a grievance.
Here, he combined the attack on the officiating with an emphatic defense of his players. He said he had nothing to reproach them for. With Madrid six points behind Barcelona, the squad assembled during Mourinho’s summer rebuild received its manager’s public backing after a damaging result. Madrid’s official match report also blamed the refereeing for the defeat.
Atlético answered with a printer-themed video showing Mourinho holding his sheet. The message, “Stop acoso arbitral ya,” called for an end to referee harassment.
For Mourinho, the Madrid derby had been defined by those two still images. Atlético used a photograph of Mourinho to challenge the way he’d done it.
