Penalty hero: Racing player admits to 'friction' with Mbappé
Real Madrid beat hosts Racing 3-0 on Sunday evening in the 11th round of La Liga.
According to the Defensa Central network, one moment overshadowed the rest. Early in the game, Kylian Mbappé went down inside the box after a collision with Iván Martín, and the penalty that followed dominated every conversation.
Racing Santander's players protested furiously, both during the match and after the final whistle.
At the interval, DAZN caught up with Iván Martín. The midfielder had put his arm on Mbappé as the forward surged forward with the ball, making him the man who gave the penalty away.
He gave his version of events. Contact, yes. A penalty, no.
"I put my arm on him a little, but incidents like these should not be given as penalties," Iván Martín said.
He continued: "The referee told us that he saw contact, and that the VAR technology confirmed its existence to him."
Everyone accepts the contact happened. Martín simply refuses to accept it was enough for a spot-kick.
By his own account, he caught Mbappé with his arm at chest height and stopped the Frenchman in his tracks. Munuera justified the decision on the contact, and the VAR room backed him up. On that point, at least, all parties are in agreement.
Where they split is on whether a touch warrants a foul inside the area. His coach, José Alberto, took the same line: a touch, yes, but no push and no hold, and therefore no penalty.
Here lies the heart of the problem. Contact did occur, and that drags the whole thing into the realm of the referee's judgement. If Munuera felt the contact was enough to impede Kylian during his run, his decision to point to the spot is correct. Nobody can measure exactly how much that touch affected the player's movement, so the referee's call stands.
VAR cannot step in here, because Munuera saw the incident himself and made his assessment.
Had there been no contact at all, the VAR room could have overturned the call. That was not the case. So nobody summoned Munuera to the monitor, however hard Racing Santander pushed the line that the technology was built for exactly these situations.
