Asked if decisions that he called “inexplicable” and “surprising” in the three games since then might be a consequence of the letter, the decision to come out fighting rebounding on them, Ancelotti said: “I don’t want to comment this subject.” It was the last answer of a press conference heavy on referees, despite the significance of the game the next day, in which Ancelotti had also said he was hopeful that Bellingham would not get a suspension following that red card and that he is more comfortable with the officiating in Europe than in the league with which they are at war.
A late night radio show called a supposedly random English number, although they later said they had chosen a hotel to ensure someone would be on reception at that time, and just said: “Fuck off,” down the line to see the response, and find out of it was offensive after all.
Refs are criticised a lot and no one praises them when they get it right,” he said then; barely an hour after leaving the press room, long enough for someone to have a word, he said he had not forgotten “the refereeing we’re suffering”; it’s just that he has to focus on the match.
Carlo Ancelotti had said that before Real Madrid face Manchester City on Wednesday night, he would approach Pep Guardiola and ask him if he really thought his team had only a 1% chance of going through.
After the game Madrid’s manager said he shouldn’t have been: he hadn’t said: “Fuck you,” to the referee José Luis Munuera Montero, after all.
