José Mourinho went for his friend Javier Aguirre at the end of a match that leaves Valencia second to last before the break in the League due to national team commitments. The Portuguese assures that he asked him not to beat himself up, that the difference between the two squads was too big. "I told him not to be sad because my players are much better than his. The problem is not Aguirre, who is a great coach with a lot of experience, but the players Madrid has are very good."
The match, the last Valencia-Real Madrid in history at Mestalla, was once again full of tension, as the duel between these two teams has traditionally been. There were frictions on the field, a challenge by Gayá on Mbappé that ended with a red card from the Valencian defender and even a fight at half-time. “At the entrance to the locker room there was fighting and pushing between players from both teams,” reported Fran Guaita on Cadena Ser and pointed out Tárrega, Rioja, Maffeo, Rüdiger and Bellingham. From À Punt Ràdio they claimed that two Madrid footballers attacked a member of the stadium security.
The referee did detail in the referee report an incident with Valencia's sports director, Braulio Vázquez. "At half-time of the match, in the locker room tunnel, Valencia's sports director, Braulio Jesús Vázquez Benítez, was in that area, where he got into an altercation, even confronting my assistant referee No. 1, whom he addressed repeatedly and in an exalted tone in the following terms: 'It's not a foul, it's not a foul! What a joke!' Likewise, when I passed by him, he also addressed me repeatedly. occasions, expressing the same words and maintaining an exalted attitude. Given this situation, the intervention of agents of the National Police Corps was necessary, who proceeded to identify him and had to restrain him and remove him from the scene to put an end to the incident," reads the arbitration report. From the club, however, they allege that he said: “It is a legal charge.”
Javier Aguirre assures that he did not see anything. "I have no idea because I'm the first to enter, I'm quite angry and I go quickly to the locker room and I want to cool down. I found out now that something happened, a mess, I just found out. Nobody told me anything."
Mourinho was not surprised by the temperature in the stadium. "Mestalla is passion. Valencia throughout history has always been a difficult stadium, demanding with its teams, its players, and playing against a Real Madrid that is much superior individually and collectively increases frustration and pushes the players. But we have had great peace of mind not to respond. The red seems very clear to me and the yellow to Kylian I don't know. The referee has done a great job in a field where people protest. At the Bernabéu people go calmly to the stadium and at Mestalla people, out of frustration, "It gives a little more to protest. Everything is within normality."
The Real Madrid coach, satisfied after his team's eight consecutive victories, is happy with the point his team has reached. “From my experience, this team smells good,” he said. "My only concern is the accumulation. They are in extreme fatigue and have to be with their team on Monday. They have muscular fatigue, not mental fatigue because the one who wins does not have mental fatigue. But out of respect for the selectors I am not going to talk to them."
Real Madrid says goodbye to Mestalla, where it has played dozens of League games, where it has won the Copa del Rey several times and where it even played at home in the European Cup. That oddity occurred in 1987 when UEFA closed the Bernabéu after fans in the back threw objects into the goal area of Jean-Marie Pfaff, Bayern Munich's legendary Belgian goalkeeper. Madrid, forced to play more than 350 kilometers from their field, chose Mestalla - then the Luis Casanova Stadium - to face Porto in the round of 16 on October 10, 1987. The bet did not go wrong, Leo Beenhakker's team won 2-1 (goals from Madjer, Hugo Sánchez and Sanchís) and after the second leg reached the next round. It was not the first time: the white team already hosted the Mestalla in the 70s.
