Real Madrid's pressure on referees is already paying off

Real Madrid brought out their media artillery after the derby defeat against Atlético Madrid. Despite the fact that all refereeing analysts considered Alberola Rojas to have got the big decisions absolutely right against Atlético, Los Blancos put on a show on its television channel to put pressure on the referees and, at the first attempt, it got results.

The VAR intervened to call referee Muñiz Ruiz when he had signalled a penalty for a Copete challenge on Lamine Yamal with 2-1 on the scoreboard. The action was doubtful and, in this type of action, the slogan is that the decision on the pitch should prevail. However, on this occasion, this rule was broken and the Galician referee, frightened, disallowed the penalty.

The best proof that the action, at the very least, was not clear enough to be invalidated came with the declarations of Javier Aguirre, Mallorca's coach, on DAZN. The Mexican admitted that his player confessed to him that he "touched" Lamine and that "it could have been called, as Medina Cantalejo would say, it was a little penalty [penaltito]." The coach concluded that the contact "for me, was not enough." An interpretation that for the referee saw differently live but was not respected.

Beyond that moment, Barcelona had learned to survive on the edge at the start of the season. They knocked out Cádiz in the last 10 minutes, came from behind at Villarreal, won in extremis in Pamplona and the miracle was even greater against Celta Vigo. These were matches in which the team demonstrated the great virtue of believing until the end. The flaw, however, is not solving the games earlier. Rushing so much can lead to a situation like the one at Son Moix, where faith and drive were not enough to get the three points. A point -- and that is thanks to Mallorca's Larin, who had a very clear chance in stoppage time.

On this occasion, the players who pushed hardest to avoid defeat were the youngsters who came off the bench: Lamine Yamal and Fermín López. Their desire is a treasure and their quality is a luxury. 

Bad mistakes

Earlier, Barça had paid for some bad mistakes from a new center-back pairing coming off periods of inactivity. Ronald Araujo and Iñigo Martínez were suffering from a lack of sharpness and Ter Stegen was also not on his game. The German gave away the first goal with a relaxed pass with his feet and came off badly in the clash between Araujo and Abdón. Raphinha had equalised Muriqi's early goal with a whipping strike, but Barça went in at half-time trailing.

Barça pressed in the second half hoping for another miracle. Fortunately, there was still Fermín López to showcase his powerful finish. This Wednesday they will have to hope that Girona, first, do not win at Villarreal and Madrid, a little later, do not beat UD Las Palamas to stay at the top of LaLiga.