Hala Madrid: José´s House of Cards

José Mourinho got in front of the press day-before yesterday, and like a muck-raking statesman in the Deep South during Reconstruction, he held up his white paper with the list of thirteen infractions and he put referee Clos Gomez in his place, requested a high-level meeting with Florentino Perez and muscled past a decidedly bothered Jorge Valdano. It was clearly a power-ploy, his way of getting what he wants in the grand scheme of things: edging Valdano out, making a buy for a number of his sort of players, and circling the wagons again from prying ¨pro-Barcelona¨ media. The referee, he declared, was out to get Real Madrid and he had proof. He tacked them on the wall like Martin Luther and dared us to look at it closely.

Well, I did, and here is what he was complaining about:

Minute 9: Foul on Di María by Konko. Should have shown a yellow but didn´t. Error. Well, it was not an error to say the least. It was the ninth minute of an important home-match. No ref is going to start producing yellow cards this early. It was a 50/50 challenge, he missed the ball and Konko hit Di Maria´s ankle. Clos-Gomez called the foul, talked with both players call and rewarded the free-kick. Good non-call.
Minute 14: Offside by Özil, it wasn´t. Error. No. He was a strange looking head and shoulders offsides.
Minute 20: Offside by Benzema, it wasn´t. Error. Another error by Mourinho. Offside Benzema, the heir to Pippo Inzaghi.
Minute 24: Foul by Zokora on Khedira. No yellow card shown. Error. No, there was barely any contact with Zokora. It wasn´t the last man, so no card, a free kick was given and another good call for el colegiado.
Minute 25': Foul on Cristiano in the head, no whistle. Error. Correct. Should have been a free-kick. Over the back.
Minute 34: Offside by Sevilla no whistle. Error. Correct. Error on Negredo.
Minute 39: Foul on Özil no whistle. Error. Correct, but he also missed the handball by Ramos 10 seconds earlier to that.
Minute 43: Offside by Di María. It wasn´t. Error. Correct, but it was Ozil who should have been onside, not DiMaria. Navarro played him onside.
One minute of discounted for time-wasting. Error. Seriously? This is the extent of his problem with Clos Gomez? I´d discount him another minute for nit-pickng.
Minute 47: Offside by Özil that wasn´t. Error : Correct. Left back kept him onside.
Minute 64: Second yellow on Carvalho for knocking heads with Negredo in the air. Error. Wrong. Carvalho led with the elbow. Correct call.
Minute 69: Penalty to Escudé on Granero not whistled. Error. Both were fighting for their place. I would say initially that Mourinho is correct, but I can see how Clos Gomez left it a non-call.
Minute 78' Yellow card on Özil for time-wasting as he was leaving the pitch. Time-wasting on Sevilla not faulted. Error. Sorry. It was more for dissent. He doesn´t react to the Sevilla players calling for a card as Ozil is leaving the pitch, until Ozil turns around and starts clapping at the referee.

Out of the 13 points he raised, he probably has a case for half, a couple could have gone either way, and the rest he just got wrong. He even missed a handful more, but what no one is mentioning is that despite Mourinho´s very vocal protestations, Sevilla probably had more of a case for bad refereeing than Real Madrid. I counted about 30 infractions by Real Madrid that were either not called or called incorrectly against Sevilla. Which makes José Maria del Nido´s comment after the match (that if the ref got 13 wrong against Real Madrid then he missed 20 against Sevilla) actually an understatement. For the king of bombacity, that´s actually saying something.

The fact is that Clos-Gomez is a poor referee, and that has been an on-going issue over time, but whether we like it or not we can´t sanction human error out of the game. I guess what I´m also saying (and this is the last time I´m writing anything about this sorry, excuse for a game) is that it´s easy to cast aspersions against a referee, but with a limited plane of focus you are always going to miss some data. The matter is always subjective, so it´s better to stay away from it altogether.