After Mourinho's outburst: Atletico star sends fiery message to Real Madrid
"They are not used to that"
Atlético Madrid have not closed the file on the derby against Real Madrid despite days having passed since the thrilling encounter. The team's players are still firing clear messages back at the royal club's protests over the referee's decisions, chief among them the criticisms of coach José Mourinho.
According to the Spanish newspaper "Marca", Álex Baena laid out his side's dressing-room stance on the controversy that followed the Rojiblancos' 2-1 win. In his view, the fuss Real Madrid stirred up over the officiating reflects an inability to accept defeat.
Baena spoke before featuring for the Spain national team against England, a match he came into as a substitute: "I think they are complaining because they lost. If it had been the other way round, there would not have been all this controversy about the officiating. When Real Madrid lose to Atlético, they try to look for other things to talk about instead of focusing on the match."
He did not stop at Real Madrid. Baena aimed his arrows directly at Mourinho, arguing that the press conference the coach held after the derby, during which he reviewed a set of refereeing incidents, was nothing more than a reaction to defeat.
He said: "I certainly think it was a kind of tantrum, because the way he appeared at the press conference, with the coloured slips of paper, looked like that, and it was proof that he does not know how to accept defeat."
The Atlético dressing room concedes that referee Ortiz Arias got some incidents wrong. What it rejects is reducing the entire match to refereeing decisions, especially as the team played through periods of being a man down and believed it was the better side and deserved the win.
According to "Marca", Atlético could not understand why the criticism from Real Madrid ran so deep, especially as the team's players recall previous derby encounters that produced refereeing decisions the club considered unfair, among them the sending-offs of Dani Ceballos and Ángel Correa.
For that reason, Atlético's players believe what happened in the latest derby cannot be separated from a long history of refereeing controversy between the two rivals. Some members of the team sum up their stance with the phrase: "They are not used to it happening to them", a nod to the feeling among the teams facing Real Madrid, especially at the Santiago Bernabéu, that they have been on the wrong end of controversial refereeing decisions.
Tension still lingers, yet Atlético hope the fallout from the derby will not spill into the upcoming meetings between the two sides. Another La Liga fixture awaits at the Santiago Bernabéu, with the possibility of the clash being renewed in the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Champions League or the Spanish Super Cup.
