Barcelona suffered a painful defeat at the Metropolitano against Atletico Madrid. A 4-0 defeat that makes it very difficult for the Catalans to reach the final. But in addition to the result, the Catalan club is furious with the refereeing of Martinez Munuera, which was decisive in the annulment of a Barcelona goal, after seven minutes of deliberation in the VAR, and the expulsion of Eric Garcia.
The anger is so great that the Catalan club is considering sending a formal complaint to the Federation about Munuera’s refereeing, as they feel very aggrieved by his actions. In the first instance, the complaints will be directed at the disallowed goal after so much time reviewing it in the VOR room.
Barcelona believes that this offside should be semi-automatic and not be discussing the play for so many minutes. The Catalan club will ask for explanations for this play, in addition to showing the enormous discomfort within the entity for this reason.
Complaints will also focus on the sending off of Eric Garcia, which they consider unfair. And, above all, the comparative grievance: there was a previous incident involving Atletico in which an Atletico Madrid player was not sent off, specifically Giuliano, for a tackle on Balde. The return to Barcelona was very hard. “We are always harmed by refereeing” or “I had never seen anything like this with VAR” were some of the phrases that were uttered.
The anger could already be seen at the end of the match with the statements of some of its protagonists. “In the television image they show of the offside you do not see the contact with the ball when shooting, and then there is an image where you see that Fermin shoots and the defender is a meter behind Robert. If what is called is the image I saw, and if it is not AI or something, it is a scandal, because it is very clear,” said De Jong.
“I don’t understand it. I don’t see any improvements with the VAR; we find it increasingly difficult to understand the decisions. That they take ten minutes to decide…”, said Deco. “The offside is a disgrace. We know what we are up against,” said Eric Garcia.
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