The images from El Sardinero on Sunday are hard to watch twice. Álvaro Mantilla is on the ground, holding his right knee. On the opposite touchline, José Mourinho is turned towards the fourth official, shouting that the Racing Santander defender is diving. Twenty-four hours later, Racing confirmed that Mantilla had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in that knee and would miss the rest of the season.

Real Madrid went on to win 3-0, with Kylian Mbappé opening the scoring from a disputed penalty. By Monday evening, the match itself was no longer the story.

Bakero wants a committee

José Mari Bakero, a four-time La Liga champion with Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona, used an appearance in Spanish daily Mundo Deportivo to demand institutional action. He described the touchline scene in forensic detail and said the problem now went beyond any single incident.

“If there is one thing that must be done now to change this situation in the Spanish league, it is the formation of a special committee whose task would be to review all the statements made by players and coaches after matches.”

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Bakero added a sharper warning: “what is happening in this way will not end well.”

He had already set out the broader argument weeks earlier. On Cadena SER’s football programme in October, Bakero accused Mourinho of cultivating a sense that Spanish football was rigged, saying the narrative “will hurt all of us” if left unchecked.

The referee, in the same match

The Mantilla incident was not Mourinho’s only flashpoint at El Sardinero. DAZN’s cameras picked up the Portuguese muttering to Chendo, Real Madrid’s first-team delegate, about the behaviour of referee Munera Montero and the Racing players’ protests, according to a match report by Goal.

“They are still talking to the bloody referee, it’s unbelievable.”

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The same official had awarded the early penalty Mbappé converted, a decision Racing’s bench disputed throughout. Mourinho’s own complaints, broadcast live, could draw a disciplinary response of their own.

‘The same style he used 20 years ago’

The chorus around Mourinho has been building since the autumn. After the capital derby defeat to Atlético Madrid, Cadena COPE pundit Paco González turned on the manager’s footballing choices rather than his touchline manner.

“The style of play that Mourinho applies and his footballing philosophy have not developed at all. It is the same style he was applying 20 years ago,” González told Cadena COPE, questioning why creative players such as Arda Güler were not trusted together in big matches.

Weeks earlier, Mourinho had already been forced on the defensive over Kylian Mbappé’s recovery from a knee injury in France rather than Madrid, telling Al Jazeera’s source outlet that the criticism was “ridiculous” and dismissing stories about a Paris nightclub visit as coverage of a private Fashion Week event.

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Mantilla is set for surgery in the coming days and Racing Santander expect to be without him for the rest of the 2026/27 campaign. Real Madrid’s next La Liga fixture follows this weekend.

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