WHAT HAPPENED?
Ahead of Saturday’s clash at Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid TV released another one of their infamous videos that critiques referees – and this time it was for Martinez. The clip showed his alleged ‘errors’ in games involving Los Blancos. Now, Barca boss Flick has said this is “not right”, that he’s never had any problems with referees, and his team “can’t be busy with these things”.
WHAT HANSI FLICK SAID
He told reporters: “I didn’t know about the Real Madrid TV videos. It’s not right that this is happening. The referees have a very hard job and my job is to prepare the players. I have a lot of experience and I’ve never had any problems with the referees. I told the team at the beginning of the season that the focus should be on performance, not on the referees. We can’t be busy with these things, but with full energy and focus on our performance.”
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Madrid host Barcelona in a battle between second and first in La Liga. The Blaugrana sit three points ahead of their bitter rivals after 10 games and will hope to preserve their lead at the top of the table at the end of the weekend. This is also Flick’s first proper taste of El Clasico and he will want to come out on top.
WHAT NEXT?
After this crunch encounter for Barcelona on Saturday night, the Catalan outfit host Espanyol on November 3, before returning to Champions League action three days later away at Red Star Belgrade.