In what’s being touted as one of the most contentious matches in recent Spanish football history, Real Madrid orchestrated a stunning recovery, overcoming a two-goal deficit to secure a 3-2 victory against La Liga’s bottom-tier team, Almeria, at Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday. The match, riddled with contentious VAR decisions favoring the Madrid side, has sparked widespread debate and criticism from various quarters of the football community.
Almeria, the underdogs, seemed poised to snap their 21-game winless streak, leading 2-0 in the second half. However, the tide turned dramatically as Real Madrid benefited from three pivotal VAR interventions. These included a penalty awarded for handball, the disallowance of an Almeria goal over a preceding foul, and the validation of a goal by Vinícius Júnior initially ruled out for handball but later judged to have come off his shoulder.
Each decision drew ire and skepticism, with Almeria’s Marc Pubill expressing a sentiment of injustice, stating, “Someone decided that we couldn’t win here.” Almeria’s frustration was palpable, with Coach Gaizka Garitano at a loss for words, wary of the consequences of speaking out.
The controversy transcended Almeria’s camp. Mundo Deportivo, a Barcelona-based sports daily, bluntly labeled the match a “Robbery,” accusing referees of gifting Madrid the victory. Barcelona’s coach, Xavi Hernández, echoed the sentiment, hinting at a systematic bias and the daunting challenge Barcelona faces in clinching the league title under such circumstances.
In the Madrid camp, the sentiment was understandably different. Real Madrid’s television commentators hailed the VAR decisions as just, a sentiment echoed by coach Carlo Ancelotti, who, while empathetic towards Almeria’s dismay, stood by the legitimacy of the calls.
The VAR’s role in the match has come under intense scrutiny. The Spanish league, in a bid for transparency, released the audio clips of the VAR deliberations. However, Almeria raised concerns about the angles of the images shown to the referee and the alleged oversight of a possible foul during the reviews. Former referee Alfonso Pérez Burrull weighed in, labeling the VAR decisions as “borderline actions” laden with subjectivity, enough to have upheld the on-field referee’s initial decisions.
As the dust settles on this dramatic encounter, the ramifications are profound and far-reaching. The match has reignited debates about the efficacy and transparency of VAR in football. While Real Madrid continues its title pursuit, Almeria, aggrieved and disheartened, must forge ahead, still in search of its elusive first victory. As Almeria’s social media post cryptically noted, some stories, it seems, are better left untold, their truths self-evident and resonating far beyond the pitch.
