Gerard Piqué did not play on Saturday el Clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona (2-1), but he still made the news a moment after the final whistle. The defender of the Catalans walked into midfield to accuse Jesús Gil Manzano, the referee on duty at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stéfano, for adding just four minutes of extra time. “There have been changes and there were technical problems with the equipment. I counted. Just four minutes. It’s disgusting, ”said a camera Movistar + statements of the defender recorded in the stadium.
Just before that, Piqué had shook hands with Luka Modric, who already saw what was going to happen. “You are waiting to let go now, aren’t you,” said the Croat ironically. Piqué: “Man, four minutes”, after which Modric bites: “How many would you have wanted?”, The midfielder said jokingly. Pretending not to hear, Piqué continued towards Gil Manzano, who eventually gave the defender a yellow card for “providing technical commentary on the field and in the player’s tunnel.”
It was team manager Carlos Naval who took Piqué away from the referee. Naval told the defender that he had to go to the dressing room, but that was not well received. “I’m talking, I’m talking”, replied Piqué. Eduardo Iturralde González looked back, shaking his head. The former top arbiter is now working for the Spanish sports newspaper ASH, which he, among other things, for AS TV gives his opinion of the referees. “He must give Piqué a red card,” emphasized Iturralde González. “He cannot let a football player talk his head off.”
“As a referee you can make a lot of mistakes, but a referee must not lose his personality and must not allow illegal attitudes”, the former referee emphasized. “What I mean? I explain. It is the same referee who did not dismiss Arda Turan when he threw a shoe at the linesman. And it is also the referee who did not give Marc Cucurella a red card when he was clearly out for him at half time and bumped into him on purpose. ”