The grounds of a Classic are never indifferent. Due to its size and consequences, it is a match that starts earlier and continues to be played after the initial whistle on the pitch. In the purely football field, Barcelona turned upside down a Santiago Bernabéu that went from dream to nightmare in just eleven days with a resounding 0-4 with echoes for posterity. The three points, happiness and illusion flew to the Camp Nou , but the controversy remained in the madridista stadium. Beyond the culé celebration on the pitch or in the dressing room, there were quarrels.
It was the 89th minute when Vinicius Júnior fell to the charge of Adama Traoré with the watchful eye a few meters from Araújo. Munuera Martínez, the referee of the match, signals a corner to the stupefaction of the Brazilian, unhinged throughout the night by the hermetic Barça surveillance and who had already starred in a face-to-face with Piqué in an action in which he asked for a penalty and the center-back recriminated him fake it “You, next year Ballon d’Or”, Eric García snapped at him from a distance, hunted by Movistar + cameras.
JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)
Why did the international center-back tell you that? “You didn’t get what he said before, did you?”, revealed Jordi Alba, captain of the Spanish team, to Cadena SER, asked about the Eric-Vinicius pique, slipping an alleged previous provocation of the Brazilian. But the what? “Let Eric tell you. If it had been me I would have said it directly, but he is a piece of bread. I say this because Eric is going to seem different and he is not.”
“I replied to Vinicius”
It had to be Eric García himself who justified his comments towards Vinicius to the Deportes Cuatro microphones, but without revealing the Brazilian’s words. “It was a play on our defense. There was a comment that he told me and I answered him and the camera just recorded me… but well, in the end it is a set piece of the game that is totally there and obviously, Vinicius is a great player and that’s it. There are thousands of these talks. You are hot with the tension and emotion of those moments and these are things that happen.”