José Mourinho Returns to Referee Blame After Madrid Derby Loss
José Mourinho pulls the referee storm back over Madrid
The derby was barely over when José Mourinho went back to one of his oldest plays. Real Madrid had lost to Atlético in the capital, their second La Liga defeat in seven games, and the Portuguese coach marched straight for the familiar target: the referee.
Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias, in Mourinho’s eyes, had shaped the game with a string of key decisions. Cards not shown. Fouls not given. Moments that, he argued, bent the derby away from his team. The tone, the posture, even the choice of villain – it all felt strikingly familiar to those who lived through his first spell at the Bernabéu.
In Spain, that sense of déjà vu was immediate.
Old Mourinho, old battles
On "Cope" radio’s "Tiempo de Juego", journalist Paco González did not spare the referee. He questioned several of Ortiz Arias’s calls himself, especially in a first half that could easily have produced more bookings.
But what really caught his attention was Mourinho.
“Mourinho has reappeared. I don't know how many years have passed since then. The blame for the defeat falls on the referee,” González said, hearing in those post-match comments the echo of the combative coach who once turned every setback into a war against officials and institutions.
González acknowledged that the Portuguese had a case on some incidents. Certain challenges, certain borderline moments, could indeed have seen cards. The issue, for him, lay elsewhere: the pattern. The instinct to push the entire narrative of defeat onto the man with the whistle.
Ortiz Arias’s performance during the game was not Mourinho’s only complaint. The coach also questioned why this particular referee had been appointed to such a high-voltage derby in the first place, a remark that pushed the debate from individual decisions to broader suspicion about the assignment itself.
González was scathing.
“I don't know if they've hired a scriptwriter for Real Madrid TV,” he said, mocking the idea that the referee’s designation formed part of some wider storyline against the club.
A modern club, an old script?
From there, González turned his focus higher up the chain. For him, this was not just about Mourinho’s words on a difficult night. It was about Real Madrid’s choice in the dugout.
The club, he argued, “needed a modern coach, but hired a coach from 15 years ago.” In that single line sat a whole critique: of style, of discourse, of how a giant of European football wants to present itself in 2024.
Keep obsessing over the referee, González warned, and the real questions disappear. What level is this Real Madrid actually at? Why did they lose the derby? Where are the structural problems in the team? As long as the spotlight burns on Ortiz Arias, the tactical and technical debate stays in the shadows.
This defeat does more than dent an early-season title push. It drags Mourinho back into the centre of the Spanish media storm after a relatively quiet start to his second life in Madrid. The press conferences had been calmer. The soundbites more measured. The controversies, for once, muted.
The derby changed that. One loss, one referee, and the old Mourinho is back on screen.
The question now is whether this is just a one-night throwback to his more explosive years, or the start of another long-running saga in which every Real Madrid slip comes with a familiar accusation and the same, well-worn script.
