Real Madrid star Toni Kroos has today made crystal clear his feelings regarding the performance of referee Isidro Díaz de Mera during his side’s meeting with Sevilla at the weekend.
Real, of course, kicked their push towards the La Liga title back into gear on Sunday, welcoming Quique’s Sevilla to Spain’s capital for a highly-anticipated clash.
When all was said and done, Carlo Ancelotti’s troops managed to emerge with all three points, owing to a moment of individual brilliance by way of substitute Luka Modrić inside the game’s closing ten minutes.
As much, however, came amid a tense atmosphere inside the Santiago Bernabéu, which saw all of Real Madrid’s players, coaching staff, and fans take aim at the man in charge of proceedings.
One such member of Carlo Ancelotti’s squad to have been left dumbfounded by the level of officiating on display came in the form of Toni Kroos.
German international Kroos followed boss Ancelotti into the referee’s notebook during the first-half, after uncharacteristically losing his cool with a free-kick awarded against him on the edge of Los Blancos’ penalty area.
As much came amid a string of decisions which the capital giants evidently felt went unfairly against them, with Kroos, on Wednesday, having opened up on the subject.
Speaking as part of his podcast, Einfach mal Luppen, the 34-year-old left little to the imagination in his criticism of referee Díaz de Mera:
“I’m not someone who likes to deal with the referees during the game, and I never do that, but it was too much,” he began, as cited by Diario AS. “What made me so angry about my action was that I was actually a metre away. That was crazy. Basically I move away from the opponent. I see that he starts dribbling in his own area and that he just wants to bump into me. Then I even walk away so that he doesn’t have much contact with me, but the referee ignored it.
“I think that throughout the first half, he whistled everything that was at the limit of being a foul. Even things that weren’t fouls at all.”
Then came Kroos’ most head-turning suggestion of all.
After Díaz de Mera was ultimately forced to depart proceedings due to an injury during the 2nd-half, Real’s midfield maestro pointed towards the work of God as having been at play:
“God sees everything and probably injured [the referee’s] calf. There were 80,000 people there and everyone was at their wit’s end with his refereeing.
“We had just had two or three really good opportunities”, he chose to add, going in even further on the official, “the referee really did everything wrong, he even got injured at the moment when it was the worst time for us to stop the game because of the way we were playing. We really have to say that the fourth official was a much better referee than Díaz de Mera. He did a good job.”
Conor Laird | GSFN
