On the weekend that Spain moved into the “new normal”, Real Madrid returned to the top of the table and everyone got back to what they missed most: the referees. On Sunday the state of alarm finally ended after 14 long weeks and a more traditional moral panic reappeared in its place. That, and some stuff that was more fun and less noticed. Like a golito from Nolito, the emergency striker Celta signed to replace an injured goalkeeper; a ridiculous golazo from Valencia’s Gonçalo Guedes; another from Leganés’s Óscar Rodriguez; and no goals at all from Barcelona. Not least because when Lionel Messi called, Sevilla stuck six men in the wall, one on the line, and another lying on the floor.
Sid Lowe
(@sidlowe)A picture makes it look easy etc and positions shift faster than we appreciate but it does feel like innovation could be met by innovation. Space and free men to be able to play a pass for a pretty clear shot at goal? https://t.co/OsbdSjX6LR
June 20, 2020
Week 30 in La Liga started with Gerard Piqué standing before a microphone wrapped in clingfilm and attached to a bargepole and virtually giving up on the title; it ended with Zinedine Zidane standing before another one after his team had underlined why. “We haven’t won anything yet,” Zidane insisted after Barcelona had drawn 0-0 at Sevilla on Friday and Madrid had won 2-1 at Real Sociedad on Sunday, but they’re closer now.
Between those games, there was more. The latest round of matches had Mallorca’s Salva Sevilla showing why Julen Lopetegui had asked Munir to lie down, slipping a free-kick under the wall and into the net. Atlético Madrid returning home and winning one-nil, just like old times. And, three days after Fifa champion and footballer again Marco Asensio scored 30 seconds into his long-awaited return, running off grinning while a teammate shouted “that’s how you come back, bloody hell”, another Madrid player starting a game after eight months in the wilderness. You might not have noticed him but you might have heard of him: the name is Bond, James Rodríguez.
It had Gerard Moreno scoring a lovely shot on the bounce to reinforce Villarreal’s European candidacy and become the top-scoring Spaniard in the league this season. And it had Sergio Ramos scoring his 20th consecutive penalty to become the top-scoring defender ever. It had Iñigo Martínez’s backheel into the net and Sergio Canales’s wild penalty over it, which left Betis defeated in Bilbao and manager Rubi unable to perform one last great escape, finally tumbling over the edge where he has teetered all season, including the day they beat Madrid. And it had Adriá Pedrosa’s neat volleyed own goal to send seemingly-improving Espanyol back to the bottom.
Most of all, it had referees and their video assistants. Or you would think so, anyway. (And, yes, there’s guilt here now too.) It had Valencia denouncing their “consternation”, providing a catalogue of moments when the officials have supposedly gone against them and striker Rodrigo Moreno joking that VAR stands for Vamos a Anularselo a Rodrigo – “let’s take this one off Rodrigo” – after he had a second goal ruled out in three days. On top of two lovely strikes from Rafinha, it had Celta getting two doubtful penalties in beating Alavés 6-0 – some way to end a five-match drought. And Getafe being rescued by the VAR when Eibar had a vital 86th-minute goal chalked off for an offside that, however often you look and for all the lines, still isn’t clear. “The technology isn’t good enough,” said assistant coach Andoni Azkargorta.
At Espanyol, it was even sillier. Not so much because Levante had a goal ruled out for offside even though Melero wasn’t interfering with anyone; more because Espanyol’s Leandro Cabrera was booked for calling referee Carlos Del Cerro Grande a cockroach when in fact he had protested that an opponent had ducked. Well, se agacha does sound a tiny bit like cucaracha.
And then there was Sunday night. After Barcelona had drawn 0-0 at Sevilla, Piqué had sounded deeply pessimistic. “It’s going to be very difficult to win this league,” he lamented, repeatedly. A Madrid victory would only put them top on head to head but with eight games left their fixtures are a little kinder and Piqué insisted that “having seen what we’ve seen in these two rounds [since returning]”, it was going to be “difficult” for Madrid to drop points.
On the face of it, that was a comment on performances: Barcelona had not impressed against Leganés and couldn’t score at Sevilla, the fourth time in 15 games they’ve failed to score. Griezmann was sitting on the bench, so too Ansu Fati. De Jong is injured. Luis Suárez played 90 minutes having been out for five months. Few players wanted to take a risk, deferring instead to Messi. Artur seemed especially determined to turn back even when there was space and time to play a pass that mattered. By contrast Madrid had put four past Eibar and three past Valencia.
Yet he was almost certainly talking about referees too. Valencia had seen Rodrigo’s goal ruled out for the tightest of interfering offsideswhile Eibar had felt hard done against Madrid three daysbefore that. And this was Piqué, after all. And so it began: the complaints and conspiratorial whispers. “Oh, what a surprise,” Sport insisted.
On Sunday morning, El Mundo Deportivo declared that Barcelona were “unhappy with the VAR”. By Sunday night, they were even less happy. There were three debatable decisions in Madrid’s 2-1 win over Real Sociedad: a penalty on Vinicius; a Real Sociedad goal disallowed for offside because Mikel Merino was in front of Thibault Courtois, and a Karim Benzema goal having controlled with his chest/shoulder/arm, depending on what you believe. And, perhaps in many cases what you want to believe. So, here’s one offer, should you care: maybe a penalty, but probably not / not offside: goal / no handball: goal.
Premier Sports 📺
(@PremierSportsTV)Januzaj scores for Real Sociedad with a great strike…but it doesn’t count! 😮
It’s ruled out for offside with Merino deemed to be in an active position in front of Courtois ❌
Karim Benzema then went down the other end a minute later to double Madrid’s lead ⚪ pic.twitter.com/vqwAXpQCmJ
June 21, 2020
But it’s not really about those decisions themselves. There are broader questions about referees and VAR, about the constant tinkering with rules, and they are more conceptual than concrete. Questions about how intrusive it is and the time taken – it was laughable about how long they took to check Guedes’s goal. About how some refs rely on VAR, how decisive decisions are based on technicalities removed from their context. Almost as if VAR is desperate to find an infraction, a reason for its own existence, reducing everything to single frame, incapable of interpreting the game, still less intent or origin. “There’s contact,” people say as if that’s the ultimate “proof” for a penalty, regardless of what kind of contact it is and where it came from. There’s contact. And? And, it seems sitting there in front a screen, that is all that is seen.
Sid Lowe
(@sidlowe)Check this out https://t.co/kzbWYLTLap
June 21, 2020
VAR conditions so much – and yet, contradictorily, often “doesn’t intervene in this kind of thing.” Justice, which is certainly enhanced, isn’t without its cost. Spirit is lost. And injustices, while they are certainly fewer now, are harder to accept, no longer attributable to human error – which few decisions were anyway in conspiratorial minds and cynical editorials. That’s perhaps part of the problem; for all the good it does VAR arrived on a twin myth: that everything was awful and technology would make everything right.
Remember when people said it would remove debate? That was a laugh. Who wants that? Put on the telly, pick up the paper, turn up the radio, and the polémica often has more of a place than the play. Shows starts with controversy, each decision rewound and watched back endlessly, debated on a loop, the highlights almost an afterthought. And so, it goes back into that dark place, the infamy, infamy.
Coming from players, it’s understandable; the feeling is raw and it’s also real, even when it’s not right. Well, usually. For so many others, it’s affected. From both sides.
At the final whistle on Sunday, Merino tried to bite his tongue. He insisted that when Adnan Januzaj’s shot went past him, he was not interfering. He was five metres away from Courtois, who had space to see, he said. Madrid’s goalkeeper was standing listening, just out of shot. “Courtois is nodding; he says that you were interfering,” Merino was told. “What’s he going to say?” Merino shot back. “The linesman didn’t even hesitate; I don’t know if he would have done at the other end. We’re more angry than sad.” His manager Imanol Alguacil said: “I prefer not to talk; getting angry gets me nowhere.”
Others did of course. Not just Real Sociedad, not just in San Sebastián – and that’s pretty much the point. Out came the accusations and the warriors. “Made in Madrid,” said El Mundo Deportivo. “Leaders of VAR,” ran the cover of Sport. At times the language is appalling, the culture created: “henchmen”, “bosses”, “corruption”, a target placed on a referee’s face. And so here we go again, once more into the fray. After months away, a pandemic, it’s back, all right. “It annoys me that people only talk about referees,” Zidane said, but maybe just this once, there’s something weirdly comforting in the conspiracies, confrontations and complaints. Maybe it’s not entirely a bad thing. Maybe this is the “normality” everyone needed?
Sevilla 0-0 Barcelona, Real Mallorca 1-1 Leganés, Granada 0-1 Villarreal, Atlético Madrid 1-0 Real Valladolid, Getafe 1-1 Eibar, Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Real Betis, Espanyol 1-3 Levante, Real Sociedad 1-2 Real Madrid, Valencia 2-0 Osasuna, Celta Vigo 6-0 Alavés.