There was a match against Racing Santander, I believe, in the 2006/2007 campaign where Madrid were down to 14 men due to a long list of injuries and the sale of Ronaldo in January. It had been 3 seasons where Madrid have not won a single title, not one. The team was old, complacent, and their memory of what it means to win was nothing but a distant memory. Not to mention that their manager was almost sacked, Fabio Capello. On that night, Madrid were supposed to win, in fact had no choice but to win. Except the referee had fucked up his decisions in favor of Racing and Madrid lost the match.
When the referee blew his final whistle complete depression had hit the fans, the players, and the upper management. All was thought to be lost, except two men, who are far more experienced than anyone else in football at the time were not worried. One was Capello who took the loss as a mere blip and more importantly, Fernando Hierro. Here is what he said:
Stop Blaming Referees, Hierro Tells Madrid
(Goal.com) - Former Real Madrid skipper Fernando Hierro has hit out at the club's decision to launch an attack on the referees, and believes that too much of the attention is focused on the officials in Spain.
Hierro has urged Real Madrid to look at themselves, insisting that the best team has always been winning the League at the end of the season.
"Over 38 games the referee is not decisive, even though in 90 minutes he can be," he said.
"After 38 games, the champion will always be the best team. The referees are human and also they make mistakes."
"From my experience in England, the names of referees did not appear in the press like this," he continued, speaking about certain Madrid based dailies declaring war on Turienzo Alvarez.
"Here we give too much importance to them, as much for the good things as for the bad things."
Ricknattery, please, for the love of god, get your shit together and stop your melt down. Because quite frankly, when you are Barcelona, the best team in the world, put yourself in a position where the referee must decide your season's outcome then you have given too much freedom for chance.
That is of course without me even disputing the decisions he has deemed incorrect which would be even a different story.
