Real Madrid have the squad to win everything, and are instead burning the season on refereeing complaints. That was the reading of Xavier Bosch in a Mundo Deportivo column this week.
“Real Madrid have a team and a squad capable of winning La Liga and the Champions League and of overcoming any opponent, even a magnificent Barcelona,” Bosch wrote.
He then named the players he had in mind: Thibaut Courtois, Fede Valverde, Ibrahima Konate, Antonio Rudiger, Marc Cucurella, Aurelien Tchouameni, Bernardo Silva, Jude Bellingham, Arda Guler, Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior.
The point was not the names. The point was what the club is doing with them. Bosch described a dressing room turning every throw-in and every booking into a confrontation, with Jose Mourinho’s staff crowding officials, players following suit, and president Florentino Perez waging his own open war with Spain’s Referees’ Technical Committee.
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A hair-pull red card three days earlier
Bosch did not have to look far for his evidence.
Vinicius Junior was sent off on 10 October in Madrid’s 1-0 home win over Villarreal, after referee Isidro Diaz de Mera reviewed the pitchside monitor and ruled he had pulled midfielder Nathan Saliba’s hair in the build-up to a goal. The goal was chalked off and the straight red card stood, with the forward leaving the field in the 72nd minute.
Vinicius apologised on social media that night, writing “sorry to the team and the fans.”
The appeal is complicated by the referee’s report, which recorded Vinicius protesting the decision in what the official described as “an aggressive manner.” Real Madrid expect at least a two-match ban and will try to have it reduced.
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Mourinho skipped the microphone to save his bench
The second response from the club was silence. Jose Mourinho skipped his own post-match press conference entirely, with club sources briefing reporters that criticising the officiating was a luxury he could not afford.
“I will not speak because I want to sit on the bench against Sevilla and Barcelona,” Mourinho reportedly told associates.
A touchline ban for public criticism of referees would have kept him off his bench for both the Sevilla fixture on 18 October and the Clasico a week after that.
Barcelona arrive eight-from-eight
The timing of Bosch’s column has an obvious context. Barcelona have won every La Liga game they have played this season, taking a perfect 24 points from eight matches and scoring 34 goals in the process. That is the joint second-highest tally for an eight-game La Liga opening, matching Athletic Club in 1930-31 and trailing only Sevilla’s 41 in 1940-41. Their lead over Real Madrid stands at six points.
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Kick-off at Spotify Camp Nou is on Sunday 25 October at 9pm local time.
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