{"id":565404,"date":"2026-04-05T04:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T04:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565404\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T04:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T04:49:08","slug":"atletico-madrid-rue-var-mistake-to-overturn-barcelona-red-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565404\/","title":{"rendered":"Atl\u00e9tico Madrid rue VAR ‘mistake’ to overturn Barcelona red card"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADRID — Diego Simeone criticised the controversial decision to overturn Gerard Mart\u00edn<\/a>‘s red card during Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a>‘s 2-1 defeat<\/a> to Barcelona<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Giuliano Simeone<\/a> put Atletico ahead in the first half at the Metropolitano, before Marcus Rashford<\/a> levelled, and then Robert Lewandowski<\/a> scored an 87th-minute winner to extend Bar\u00e7a’s lead at the top of the LaLiga table.<\/p>\n

Atl\u00e9tico played 45 minutes with 10 men after Nico Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a>‘s sending off, but Bar\u00e7a were spared a red card of their own early in the second period when Martin was dismissed for a forceful challenge on Thiago Almada<\/a>, only for a VAR review to downgrade the defender’s punishment to a yellow card.<\/p>\n

“There isn’t much to say. The action is clear,” coach Simeone said in his post-match news conference. “He [Martin] arrives late, and treads on [Almada].<\/p>\n

“I saw the [similar incident] from Betis-Rayo [on Feb. 21] and the [referees’ committee] CTA said it was a red card … Let’s hope the CTA comes out in midweek and clarifies it for next week. They made a mistake, like we coaches do.”<\/p>\n

“For everyone who understands football, it’s a red card,” defender Robin Le Normand<\/a> said. “I don’t know what happened. [The referee] made the right decision, then they reviewed it.<\/p>\n

“Everyone can make mistakes, but I think today they made a mistake. Today they were big details which affected the game.”<\/p>\n

Gerard Martin avoided a red card in Barcelona’s win over Atl\u00e9tico Madrid.\u00a0Aitor Alcalde\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Barcelona’s win followed rivals Real Madrid<\/a>‘s 2-1 defeat at Real Mallorca<\/a> earlier on Saturday, meaning Bar\u00e7a now have a seven-point lead at the top.<\/p>\n

Atl\u00e9tico now travel to Barcelona on Wednesday, as the teams meet again in their Champions League quarterfinal first leg, in a series of three meetings in 10 days.<\/p>\n

Simeone rested a number of key players for Saturday’s game including Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez<\/a> and Ademola Lookman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We had a very good first half, with chances on both sides, the team playing well,” Simeone said. “The sending off [of Nico Gonz\u00e1lez] was a sending off. There are some sendings off which are sendings off.<\/p>\n

“In the second half, it was a different game. We couldn’t attack as we’d have liked. The [Lewandowski] goal came at the end, with a rebound, when we could have got a draw.”<\/p>\n

“We played a great game in the first half,” goalkeeper Juan Musso<\/a> said. “The red card hurt us. It’s difficult to play with one player fewer. I think [Martin’s] was a red … 11 versus 11, we were better, I think.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID — Diego Simeone criticised the controversial decision to overturn Gerard Mart\u00edn‘s red card during Atl\u00e9tico Madrid‘s 2-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-565404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}