Barcelona managed to triumph within the Copa del Rey closing in extremis on Saturday evening, securing the winner 5 minutes from time by a wonderful Jules Kounde strike. That took a few of the sting out of a recreation the place tensions over officiating had been raised to new heights with Actual Madrid requesting that the officers be modified a day earlier than the sport.
Over the course of a number of hours after referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea and VAR Pablo Gonzalez Fuertes gave a press convention, Los Blancos made their indignation clear, feeling they might be biased in opposition to them. Following the cancellation of their press convention and coaching session on Friday, it was rumoured that Los Blancos might pull out of the ultimate, one thing Actual Madrid later distanced themselves from.
From a Barcelona perspective, many noticed this as an try and pile the stress on the officers. One participant who actually was not impressed by all of it was Basque defender Inigo Martinez, who spoke to Marca after the sport.
President Laporta: “The one who determined that Flick needs to be the primary crew coach was Deco. It is the signing of Deco and Bojan. I favored him from the beginning, I needed to signal him from the beginning. As President I all the time have issues to say, nevertheless it was them who analyzed him from a human…
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“They had been very unfair. All of us make errors. We will be higher or worse… However for issues to get to that stage, it didn’t dwell as much as the identify of the good membership that’s Actual Madrid. That’s my opinion,” he commented.
“I congratulated de Burgos Bengoetxea for the job that he had finished, and I hope the remaining additionally do it, that they put themselves in his place. As a result of it’s not straightforward to be there, and to have everybody pointing at you and blaming you. I feel that in the present day soccer gained and that’s the necessary factor.”
Martinez would once more proceed on in defence of the officers, who he believed did a superb job regardless of appeals from Barcelona followers for a penalty on Ferran Torres and potential pink playing cards in opposition to Luka Modric and Aurelien Tchouameni.
“[I have to] Congratulate Richi and his colleagues, they had been at an ideal stage. I hope all of us do it. It was very unfair to take issues that far, and, for our half, we wish to again them up. All of us make errors in life and it’s arduous. No one likes to be in that state of affairs. He knew it could be tough, a number of noise surrounding it. I’m comfortable for him, he is a superb man and his professionalism by no means fails.”
Actually there have been stronger reactions from elsewhere in Spanish soccer. Whereas Barcelona largely stored away from talking about referees within the build-up, supervisor Hansi Flick didn’t that it was all of soccer’s responsibility to guard referees. In the meantime La Liga President Javier Tebas accused Actual Madrid of an abuse of energy, and Atletico Madrid posited that Los Blancos had been harassing officers.