Photo by Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images
Tempers flared in the Almeria camp as Real Madrid mounted a spirited fightback to beat them 3-2 at the Santiago Bernabeu earlier today.
Sitting at the bottom of the table, Gaizka Garitano’s men looked set to register their first win of the season after taking a two-goal lead in the first period.
But, Real Madrid fought back hard in the second half, with goals from Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Jr., and Dani Carvajal handing them all the points.
Almeria were unhappy with three key decisions made by the referee and the VAR on the day, the first of which saw Real Madrid being awarded a penalty before they had a goal chalked off for a foul and then Vinicius’ goal was allowed to stand amid complaints of a handball.
Manager Garitano was shown a red card for his protests on the sideline while several players, on the field and the bench, constantly expressed their displeasure. Their interactions with the media after the game again highlighted their anger at how things went down.
Garitano furious
While Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti felt that the referee made the right decisions, his Almeria counterpart, Gaizka Garitano, did not see things the same way.
“I don’t usually talk about referees but everyone has seen this game and it’s not the first time this has happened to me here. Then we get penalised for talking, my opinion is worthless. What can I say. I have no words to describe what happened today,” he said.
On his sending off, he added: “The referee sent me off fairly. I was protesting quite a lot during the whole match. It’s true that I protested quite a few decisions and he decided to send me off. I protested a lot of decisions, logically; I couldn’t do anything else.”
Molero, Pubill hit out
Speaking after the match, Almeria’s Gonzalo Melero hit out at the refereeing saying that they felt robbed with the outcome.
“We are leaving with the feeling that we were robbed,” he said, before adding: “I don’t think we could have done more from the off to put them in the game. There’s no way to accept it. What happened today was beyond all limits.”
“It hurts me a lot, but La Liga is light years away from the Premier League,” he added.
Meanwhile, Marc Pubill said: “Someone decided we couldn’t win here.”
Edgar Gonzalez, who was one of Almeria’s goalscorers, said: “There are many differences, this is a competition that should be fair for everyone and sometimes it’s hard to see that.
“The first is a very clear foul and I think it was a handball in the second goal, I haven’t seen the goal that was disallowed against us. It’s a sum of everything, of seeing that they were all going for them.”
