MADRID Zinedine Zidane broke his habit of not talking about refereeing performances after Real Madrid’s in extremis victory over Elche by 2 goals to 1. In the second half, Sergio Ramos was the subject of a possible penalty that neither the referee nor the VAR ruled and Zidane wanted to take part in the matter by asking himself: “Criminal in Ramos? We think there is something …”.
In fact, Zidane laughed that the referees didn’t whistle penalties to his team.
“(Laughter) I’m not going to get in here again. You know, the referee does his job and we try to do ours, and that’s it. I saw the play (by Rams). Well, it seems to us that there is something but in the end the referee has decided something else and that’s it, “said the Madrid coach.
Zidane also admitted that his team needs to close out games first. And it was until the 91st minute that Karim Benzema’s second goal came to certify the victory.
“The five, ten minutes before half time we also had chances and at the beginning of the second half. Then when you look at both plays, that’s it. When we put pace and having patience with the ball, we made two very good plays of goal and you have to believe more. It’s true that it’s more complicated when you face teams like that, but we have to find the gap without going crazy because it costs us against teams that play backwards. “
About that, the Frenchman was clear. He stays with the collective spirit, but prefers to close the matches with more time.
“I like the character of the team, but I prefer to score goals earlier and have a calmer game. Same for the boys. This team has personality and we will continue to fight. We are alive in competition day and we will continue,” commented Zidane.
With today’s victory, Real Madrid puts pressure on both Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. They are five points behind the Mattresses with Atleti playing against Getafe. Barça, lacking their match against Real Huesca, have a point.