Jose Mourinho left the Madrid derby with more complaints about refereeing than regret over his Real Madrid players after Atletico Madrid won 2-1 on Sunday.
The Real Madrid coach held up photographs of two first-half challenges during his post-match press conference, arguing that Atletico’s Cristian Romero and Lee Kang-in should both have been sent off.
Mourinho said the decisions had contributed to a wider pattern of what he believes have been inconsistent calls against his team.
“The story of the match is here,” Mourinho said while displaying the images, according to Real Madrid’s official account. He described the two incidents as clear red-card offences.
Romero had been involved in a challenge with Jude Bellingham, while Lee was involved in an incident with Federico Valverde. The referee’s decisions on both plays became major talking points after the match.
Real Madrid then found themselves playing with 10 men early in the second half when Dean Huijsen was dismissed for bringing down Giuliano Simeone in the penalty area.
Alejandro Grimaldo converted the resulting spot kick in the 53rd minute, and Jonathan David added a second goal six minutes later.
Antonio Rudiger headed Real back into contention in the 89th minute, but Atletico held on to move to second place.
The defeat left Mourinho’s side on 15 points, six behind Barcelona and one behind Atletico.
Mourinho said he wanted to believe the controversial decisions were mistakes rather than deliberate actions.
“I want to think they simply made mistakes,” he said, referring to the refereeing decisions.
Despite the result, Mourinho said he had nothing to reproach his players for and maintained that Real Madrid’s title challenge remained alive.
