José Mourinho blasts ref, VAR: 'Two clear red cards' for Atlético Madrid - ESPN

José Mourinho blasted the referee and the VAR after Real Madrid's 2-1 derby defeat to Atlético Madrid, saying Atlético should have received «two clear red cards» and claiming the on-field official «couldn't cope with the pressure.»

Alejandro Grimaldo put Atlético ahead with a second-half penalty at the Metropolitano — after defender Dean Huijsen was sent off for bringing down Giuliano Simeone — before Jonathan David made it 2-0. Antonio Rüdiger pulled a late goal back as Madrid dropped to fourth in the LaLiga table.

However, Mourinho's postmatch news conference focused on two first-half incidents, when Atlético's Cristian Romero was shown a yellow card — not a red — for treading on Jude Bellingham's knee, while Lee Kang-in escaped punishment for a crunching challenge on Federico Valverde.

Mourinho brought printed-out photos of the two incidents into the press room to show journalists, before delivering a long, damning indictment of referee Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias and VAR Daniel Trujillo Suárez.

«The story of the game is here,» Mourinho said, holding up the images of the two challenges. «They're two clear red cards. With the difficulties we had afterwards — with 11 versus 10 [players] — you could imagine what it would have been like [for us] for 50 minutes with 11 versus nine.

»It's the CTA [the referee's committee]. It's all been very strange. It's a referee [Ortiz Arias] who, at 41, doesn't have international experience. I don't know why he was the referee. The poor guy came here and couldn't cope with the pressure.

«But for [the VAR] there's no pressure, at [RFEF HQ] Las Rozas there's no pressure. Or maybe there is and we don't know.… That combination — a poor referee, who's only done small games, and a VAR with a big