Atletico respond to Mourinho’s referee complaints after 2-1 Madrid derby win

Atletico Madrid hit back on Monday after Jose Mourinho criticised the refereeing following Real Madrid’s 2-1 Madrid derby defeat on Sunday, arriving at his post-match news conference with printouts of incidents he said merited red cards.

Mourinho accused match officials of making key errors and said Atletico should have had two players sent off in the first half, presenting screenshots at the press conference. The match report on Real’s website described the derby loss as decided because of "dreadful refereeing", external of Ortiz Arias.

Atletico posted twice on their X account in response, first uploading a video showing a sheet of paper coming out of a printer bearing the words #StopAcosoArbitralYA, meaning "stop referee harassment now". The club’s second post featured a photograph of Mourinho at the news conference with the same message.

The club’s social-media reply drew rapid attention, receiving two million views on X within two hours of being posted. Atletico have previously used their accounts to answer rivals, repeatedly posting on X this summer to ridicule Barcelona over their pursuit of Atletico’s talisman Julian Alvarez.

"We can skip the press conference because the story of the match is right here," Mourinho said as he showed media the printed images on sheets of A4 paper on Sunday. "Those were two clear red cards. Given the difficulties we faced afterwards playing 11 against 10, we can only imagine what 50 minutes of 11 against nine would have been like. "So I'll just have to limit myself to hugging my players, who gave it their all and played a first half, showed great class and character, setting us up perfectly to win the second half."

When asked to respond to Mourinho's refereeing rant, Diego Simeone said: "I understand that we're in a privileged position with a lot of public scrutiny, as coaches, and whether it's Mourinho, [Barcelona manager Hansi] Flick, [Real Betis boss Manuel] Pellegrini, me, or anyone else, we need to be careful about what we say," he said. "We have to know how to respect others, the referees, our colleagues. And when someone crosses that line of respect, it's not right - you can't cross that line."

It was Real’s second defeat of the season, their earlier loss coming 1-0 against Real Betis in September.