On Saturday night, Real Madrid overcame Athletic 2-0. A rather quiet meeting for the Merengues, without any particularly controversial or noticed match, except for the sad injury Éder Militão. On the other hand, FC Barcelona had a lively introduction to it on the lawn of Getafe on Sunday. A 0-0 draw, marked by several arbitration controversies. Raphinha was thus expelled at the end of the first period, on an elbow inflicted on Gaston, the Azulones defender. Undeniable as the gesture of the Brazilian was hard, but for many Barcelona observers, it was only a fair response to the very rough game of the club from the Madrid suburbs.
If Jaime Mata in turn received a red card afterwards, leaving the two teams at 10 against 10, the match was marked by this game quite hard and sometimes at the limit of the team led by the sulphurous Pepe Bordeaux. Xavi also received a red card because of a rather aggressive attitude towards the fourth referee. At the very end of the match, after additional time, new contentious action with a possible penalty from Iglesias on Ronald Araujo, finally not whistled because the referee estimated that there was a hand from Gavi just before. An action that caused controversy, both on social networks and at a press conference.
Xavi had it bad
“I don’t see any hands anywhere. If there’s no clear hand, don’t whistle, that’s what they told us. The referee invented the hand. It’s like that. If we sell the LaLiga product and we have this, it doesn’t help anyone… It’s an accumulation of things, they let them play, they whistle against us… (…) It’s normal that people don’t want to watch anymore of football. Today’s product is a disgrace”launched a Xavi exasperated by the arbitration and the style of play of Getafe.
“The greatness of football is such that a small team is able to take a point from Barcelona. I don’t agree with him and that’s obviously a way of justifying the fact that they didn’t get the three points with a great team, with incredible players. They gave us a lot more boxes. I don’t think it benefited us. The most aggressive game was played by Barcelona and I have nothing to add. It’s a way to camouflage the good game of my players. It wouldn’t occur to me to justify a defeat or a draw by the game of the opponent.”, Bordalas then replied. Be that as it may, Barça are not starting their season in the best possible way…
