Controversy overshadowed Real Madrid\u2019s 2\u20131 win at Anoeta on Saturday night. The flashpoint came in the 32nd minute when referee Gil Manzano showed Dean Huijsen a straight red card for a challenge on Mikel Oyarzabal.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred when Huijsen made contact with Oyarzabal\u2019s shoulder as the two players sprinted side by side. The Sociedad captain went down, and Manzano immediately judged the action to be a denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity. What made the decision contentious was the positioning of the rest of the defense: Eder Militao was in line with Huijsen, and both were still a significant distance from Thibaut Courtois\u2019 goal.<\/p>\n
The Real Madrid bench reacted furiously, with head coach Xabi Alonso receiving a yellow card for his protests. After the match, Alonso confronted Gil Manzano directly on the pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus (Gil Manzano), I don\u2019t want to, but you\u2019re making me think badly, man,\u201d Alonso told the referee. \u201cHaven\u2019t you seen that Militao is on the sidelines? But Militao is on the sidelines! He\u2019s five meters from the play.\u201d The coach concluded: \u201cThis one will go to the CTA, for sure. It will go on video, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
A video of the incident was posted by Managing Madrid\u2019s Lucas Navarrete on X:<\/p>\n
Alonso later expanded on his frustration in the post-match press conference:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it was a yellow card. Militao was close, the ball wasn\u2019t under control, and there were still 40 meters left. That\u2019s my interpretation. The referee had another one, and VAR should have had another one too, but I\u2019ve seen the replay and I haven\u2019t changed my mind. I asked him, he gave me his explanation, but I wasn\u2019t entirely convinced. We\u2019ll leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the controversy, Madrid held on to secure the three points. Still, the debate around Huijsen\u2019s red card is certain to continue, with Alonso making clear that he expects the play to be reviewed by the CTA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Controversy overshadowed Real Madrid\u2019s 2\u20131 win at Anoeta on Saturday night. The flashpoint came in the 32nd minute…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":225758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[105,98664,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-225757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-latest-news","9":"tag-real-madrid-cf-la-liga","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115201801410057386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}