The flashpoint came with the match level at 1-1. The ball struck Balde’s lower arm as he and Kylian Mbappé competed for it inside the Barcelona box. Munuera waved play on. VAR did not intervene.

For Real Madrid, who felt a penalty at that moment could have swung the Clasico their way, it was the night’s grievance that would not go away. Mbappé had put the visitors in front in the 41st minute, Raphinha had equalised for Barcelona in the 61st, and Mbappé struck again in the 87th to seal a 2-1 win at the Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday. The question of the handball carried straight into Monday morning.

Iturralde: natural position, not a penalty

Iturralde González, a former referee who works as a rules analyst for AS and Cadena SER, took the sequence apart and backed Munuera.

“There is nothing abnormal, it is just a football play. Both were competing for the ball, and it struck Baldé’s hand, which was at the lower part of his body,” he said in his analysis for AS, as cited by Goal.com.

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For the analyst the test was arm position and intent to compete, not whether the hand had been touched at all. His verdict on the incident itself was blunt.

“His arm was in a natural position to compete for the ball. It is true that it touched his hand, but this handball does not deserve to be punished,” Iturralde added.

The modern handball rule, as applied in LaLiga, pulls apart two situations. A defender who makes himself unnaturally bigger, with the arm away from the body and extended beyond what the challenge requires, is punished. A defender whose arm is low and moving with his own body in a competing action, as Balde’s was, is not. On that reading, there was no monitor review to call Munuera over for.

Archivo VAR agrees, and marks Munuera down elsewhere

The specialist Spanish refereeing outlet Archivo VAR, which grades every top-flight referee performance, gave Munuera 5.75 out of 10 and sided with him on the Balde incident, describing the moment as three simultaneous touches inside a single second and the contact as purely accidental.

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The rest of the review was less generous. A yellow card for Joao Cancelo on Diomande was waved away in a challenge the analysts felt clearly warranted a booking. A late yellow for Eduardo Camavinga was also missed. Archivo VAR concluded that the referee’s positives outweighed his negatives on what it called an extremely difficult match.

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