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The combination of Real Madrid and VAR was too much for Real Betis in Saturday’s 3-2 home loss, coach Manuel Pellegrini said after his team left empty-handed despite beating the La champions. League in parts of the match.
Betis overcame an early goal to take a 2-1 lead over Madrid at halftime.
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But three interventions went the way of the champions after the break, bringing Madrid tied, Betis sent off defender Emerson and the visitors earned a late penalty that Sergio Ramos converted to win the match.
“When you face Real Madrid and VAR it’s too much,” Pellegrini said at a press conference.
“We were much better than Real Madrid in the first half, we scored two goals and we had three clear chances to score. The second half was more even, then came the red card, the penalty, and playing for so long with a man.” downstairs was tough.
“When you’re playing against Real Madrid and you give a penalty and they send a man off for VAR, it’s very difficult. But I appreciate how well we played when we were 11 against 11.”
Pellegrini, who coached Real Madrid in the 2009/10 campaign, led Betis to two victories in their first two games of the season and was still satisfied with his team’s performance despite the form of defeat.
“The positive is that I am more confident than ever that we are on the right track. When we both had 11 players on the field, we were much better than Real Madrid,” he added.
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane grew tired of the constant bickering over the referees in last season’s title win and clearly did not want to intervene in Saturday’s debate.
“There is a referee and it is his job to review the plays. I think what happened today was fair,” Zidane said.
“The referee is in charge, I never get involved with the referees and I am not going to do it today. The most important thing is how we played, and we gave it our all on very difficult terrain.
“We are happy, satisfied with the work we have done, we took off our socks and got three important points.
