Barcelona fume over supposed Diego Simeone taunt aimed at Lamine Yamal

Barcelona have a multitude of reasons to be frustrated on Friday morning, but they have added Diego Simeone to their list. The Argentine manager appeared to taunt Lamine Yamal during the first half of Atletico Madrid’s 4-0 win over Barcelona in the Copa del Rey semi-final first leg.

The Blaugrana are set to file a formal complaint to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) over the officiating in the game, with manager Hansi Flick calling Spanish refereeing ‘a mess’. Barcelona were already sunk by half-time though, conceding four goals in a first half for their first time since their 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich, with Flick on the other side of the result.

Hansi Flick: "We need all our fans for the return game. It's a lesson learned and we have to move on." pic.twitter.com/3td8aIht1E

— barcacentre (@barcacentre) February 12, 2026

Simeone appears to taunt Lamine Yamal

There was an incident after Los Colchoneros went three goals up in the first half, where Lamine Yamal appeared to be taunted by Simeone. The Atletico Madrid manager was caught signalling three fingers to Lamine Yamal as he passed by him on the touchline in the first half, which has not gone down well in Barcelona say Sport.

IMAGEN @elchiringuitotv | GESTO DE SIMEONE A LAMINE.

El argentino le señaló el número 3 con la mano… tras el tercer tanto del Atleti. pic.twitter.com/ZAOnDlFKq6

— El Chiringuito TV (@elchiringuitotv) February 12, 2026

It should be noted that from the still image, it looks as if Simeone is holding up a three to Lamine Yamal, but video footage, while not entirely clearing things up, appears to show little animosity between the two.

Provocació de Simeone a Lamine Yamal o intercanvi d'opinions i gestos sobre la gespa?

Les imatges de la càmera de TV3 aclareixen l'escena

Tots els detallshttps://t.co/HGgzgo76vl pic.twitter.com/7wTHaOCr8v

— Esport3 (@esport3) February 13, 2026

Simeone apologised for Vinicius Junior incident

This obviously comes little over a month after Simeone was caught taunting Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior during Atletico Madrid’s 2-1 defeat in the Spanish Supercup semi-final. As Vinicius passed him, Simeone was seen shouting ‘Florentino [Perez] is going to kick you out’ on several occasions. When the Brazilian was taken off, to whistles from the crowd, Simeone cupped his ear and pointed at Vinicius in a clear ‘for you’ gesture.

Diego Simeone, 14 years and still going strong. pic.twitter.com/bwa5Frv7vf

— Atletico Universe (@atletiuniverse) February 13, 2026

Claiming after the game that he had a ‘complicated memory’ in order to dodge questions about it, he did then admit mea culpa days later. Simeone apologised to both Vinicius and Perez, explaining that ‘it wasn’t right of me to behave like that’.

The post Barcelona fume over supposed Diego Simeone taunt aimed at Lamine Yamal appeared first on Football España.