Barcelona vs Real Madrid: VAR controversy boils Barca blood before crucial Clasico

Barcelona were left furious after VAR denied them a last-gasp penalty against Real Sociedad, and it is against that backdrop that they head into Wednesday night’s mouthwatering game with Real Madrid

Gerard Pique and Barcelona left San Sebastian frustrated (Getty)

Barcelona and Real Madrid go into Wednesday’s Clasico still level at the top of La Liga, although with very different sensations after both experienced added time drama over the weekend.

Barca left Real Sociedad’s Anoeta on Saturday afternoon fuming about a supposed VAR failure which denied them a last-gasp penalty for a jersey pull on Gerard Pique and left the final score at 2-2.

But Barca’s anger may have subsided just a bit after Madrid needed a 95th-minute Karim Benzema equaliser, after Madrid’s goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had headed a corner goalwards, to get a 1-1 draw at Valencia’s Mestalla on Sunday evening.

It means the big two are currently tied on 35 points each, four ahead of third-place Sevilla, with the Clasico as their game in hand. A winner at the Camp Nou on Wednesday will be sure to top La Liga through the winter break, and become favourite to take the title.

On Saturday Real Sociedad dominated the opening stages against Barca, and deservedly went ahead when Sergio Busquets’ pull on Diego Llorente’s jersey was punished from the penalty spot by captain Mikel Oyarzabal.

At that point Oyarzabal and fellow youngster Martin Odegaard were leading the Barcelona midfield and defence a merry dance, and only a mixture of poor finishing and some last-ditch defending by Pique kept the score at 1-0.

Then just before half-time a slip by centre-back Llorente helped Luis Suarez send Antoine Griezmann clear for a beautifully taken leveller. And just after the break Griezmann was again central to a move which saw Lionel Messi unselfishly give Suarez a tap-in for 2-1.

Lionel Messi dribbles at the Sociedad defence (Getty)

Had Barca kept control from there to the final whistle, the VAR storm would never have erupted. But Marc-Andre ter Stegen spilled a deflected Nacho Monreal cross, not the German keeper’s first error in the last couple of weeks, and Alexander Isak slammed in an equaliser.

Both teams went looking for a winner and Pique galloped forward into the box in open play, then went to ground at the back post claiming his jersey had been pulled by the very involved Llorente.

Referee Javier Alberola Rojas immediately said no penalty, and soon blew up for a result which ended Barca’s run of seven consecutive victories in all competitions.

The sharing of the points was probably fair on the balance of the 90 minutes, but Barcelona anger over the Pique incident was magnified as they claimed double standards in the decisions taken by Alberola Rojas and his fellow officials. Especially when they compared it to the perceived harshness in whistling the penalty against Busquets.

“I might have given him a little pull,” said Busquets himself afterwards. “But if you put the bar that high it will be difficult. The pull on Gerard’s shirt was much clearer than mine. The referee must have seen it, but he did not want to whistle. It’s clear that VAR should have been consulted, but it was not. We don’t know what’s going on in the referee’s head. We don’t know what happened, and we won’t know as they are not going to tell us.”

The Barca camp were so outraged that club president Josep Maria Bartomeu felt the need to get involved. Club sources quickly got the message out widely that Bartomeu had contacted Spanish federation chief Luis Rubiales to complain that VAR had not even been consulted in the Pique incident, and that Barca would also file a formal complaint questioning how the technology is being applied in Spain and whether all clubs are treated the same.

Sunday’s Catalan press amplified the outrage – Sport’s ‘VAR-gonzoso’ front page punned on the Spanish word ‘shameful’, while Mundo Deportivo directly linked it to Wednesday’s game at the Camp Nou with ‘a Clasico robbery’. Both ran with photos from an angle which they claimed showed clearly that Pique had been fouled.

Equally enterprising local reporters in Madrid recalled that VAR had intervened in the Barca games on just three previous occasions so far in 2018/19, and none had been decisive in the result. During VAR’s first season in La Liga last year the overall tally was six interventions in Barca’s favour and two against, with no final score being directly affected.

Hence Saturday was the first time that a crucial VAR call had gone against Barca, and the noise generated was awesome. It also made their pride at supporting the new system when Madrid president Florentino Perez attacked it last season seem hypocritical. And maybe more importantly, it distracted from yet another poor Barca performance away from home this season.

There was a lot less neutral analysis of the actual call made by the referee, and it was difficult to tell even after constant replays whether Pique had instigated the contact with Llorente as the ball was in the air.

About the only voice within the Barca family willing to take a reasonable stance was coach Ernesto Valverde, whose voice does not often seem to carry that much weight around the Camp Nou.

“If I am sincere, we are not so objective,” Valverde said at the post-game news conference. “We sit on the bench with our jerseys on, so [the incident with] Busquets was not a penalty but the other [with Pique] was. La Real’s coach could come here and say just the opposite.”

Sociedad manager Imanol Alguacil and captain Oyarzabal were not asked about the controversy when they spoke to the media. But by Sunday afternoon the San Sebastian club decided they should enter the debate, with a series of tweets featuring images from angles which showed pretty conclusively that Pique had also been holding Llorente’s jersey.

“If others prefer to complain with other images, we will help them choose those which clearly show what really happened,” said one message, while others pointed to past meetings when refereeing decisions had gone in Barca’s favour.

Thibaut Courtois gets up to head an assist for Real Madrid (AP)

Barca did not respond to that. And obviously the rights and wrongs of whether it was a penalty or not are not really important. Barca dropped two points four days before Madrid visit, and it was felt a rallying call was needed, and supplied.

Madrid got their own pre-Clasico boost on the pitch, thanks to Benzema’s late equaliser in a game that Los Blancos dominated during a super intense first half, but were unable to find a way past Valencia keeper Jaume Domenech.

Zinedine Zidane’s team appeared to run out of gas and Valencia came back and seemed to have nicked the three points thanks to homegrown midfielder Carlos Soler’s calm finish with 12 minutes remaining.

Madrid then had their own VAR moment, when substitute Luka Jovic thought he had equalised but was clearly shown to be offside. There was still time for Benzema (and Courtois) to get what was a deserved point overall.

“We played an enormous first half and had many chances,” Zidane said afterwards. “They came into it more in the second half. We believed in what we are doing, kept going until the end, and deserved to equalise. In the end, at least we got a point. And we have to be happy with what the lads did.”

The way the weekend panned out means that neither Zidane nor the Madrid media should need to reach for any supposed scandals or conspiracy theories ahead of Wednesday’s game. Whether that generally more positive mood gives Los Blancos a slight advantage remains to be seen.