If VAR had existed before..., by Paulo Futre

I won three derbies in the Bernabeu…and they would have been more if the WAS!” I declared in another medium a few years ago. Readers who comb gray hair will understand very well why. I am only going to remember one example to put in context: that mythical play between my dear Paco Buyo and me, in which we ended up spinning on the floor. In the confusion, the goalkeeper attacked orejuela with a punch. As a plot twist, the referee expelled… Orejuela! To the attacked!

In that game there were more incomprehensible refereeing mistakes, such as another noisy direct red foul by the goalkeeper to Manolo and a hair-raising elbow from Gallego a Baltazar. Despite all this, of course, the meringues ended up scoring the doubtful winning goal with Martin Vazquez in 1991. I ended up expelled for protesting injustice so much. What happened in that game was so scandalous that when Stadium Studio aired the controversial reruns from other angles, uncovering all the embarrassments, forced the Committee to rectify, remove the red one orejuela and punish Buyo with multiple matches.

The whites issued a statement regretting that they were the result of some kind of conspiracy from TVE, that the images were manipulated, unfair treatment by the press…does this sound familiar to you? Anyway! The worst of all that is that it ended up costing a professional his job. Shortly after that game, Ramón’s former press officer Mendoza became the head of TVE Sports and mysteriously decided not to renew one of the journalists who had dealt with those images. Coincidences of life.

Many of you will be wondering what I’m taking out the trunk of memories for. Isn’t it obvious? The Metropolitan premiered his first victory in a derby on Sunday with a penalty reviewed by the WAS. Amazing! It was inevitable to remember so many injustices that that generation of mattresses experienced and that it would take several complete editions of Mundo Deportivo to talk about them. For the record: not only of that generation. The most recent have already suffered Clattenburg admitting the serious mistakes that harmed Atleti in the final of Milan. On his day I made it clear: “If the WAS had existed years ago, Atlético would have more than one Champions”.

As for the game itself, it is a pity that it had to be decided by a revised penalty, because the red and white superiority was worthy of a much larger result. As much as the meringues hide behind the fact that they did not come out with all their troops, the reality is that the eleven they had in the field were much more expensive than the mattress: 218.4 million compared to 153.5 for the Athletes. Clear things, that do not come with milongas, as you say in spain. A derby is always a derby and no professional likes to lose. Not the marbles. And less against the eternal rival.

In addition to the moral victory, there were also three very important points to achieve the goal of playing Champions next season. I am confident that we will end up achieving it, who knows if tomorrow we beat Elche. Blind trust in our great coach, our stars and the best fans. My sincere congratulations to all of them, you made me very happy on Sunday.

Of course, I sincerely hope that no journalist loses his job because of it.