Head down and with a weary step, as if from resignation and haste, Diego Pablo Simeone, Giménez and Koke had to go to the south end where the Atlético ultras are located to ask to stop the rain of objects, mainly lighters, that fell on Thibaut Courtois. “Let’s think, let’s think, there is more game,” Simeone tried to reason with the ultras. The Belgian goalkeeper had already shown a few lighters to the referee before he decided to stop the game for several minutes. “We don’t need those people, but we also as protagonists, be careful, people don’t react just because they do. That does not justify what has happened, but be careful that they can also sanction us, since as I am the protagonist, nothing happens. The one who threw the lighter should not return to the field, the club should expel him, but sanction the one who provokes, too. If we charge, there are reactions, we cannot become victims, be it Simeone, Messi, Griezmann or whoever,” Cholo asserted, alluding to Courtois’s alleged provocations.
Pointing out the Belgian goalkeeper as the culprit will raise blisters and controversy over the figure of the red and white coach. “We all have to help. The people who have thrown those lighters, as happened at the Bernabéu when Courtois was our player and received a lighter to the head, are not okay. But possibly we, the protagonists, don’t help either when we underestimate people, we burden people, we provoke people and people get angry,” Simeone insisted. Koke, who also targeted the Belgian goalkeeper, spoke along the same lines. “It was a moment of great tension. This can’t happen on a football field. Obviously, we are professionals and we have to know where we are. We cannot blame everyone for four and as players we have to be smarter.”
The embarrassing and shameful spectacle caused the protocol provided for these cases to be applied. After several warnings over the public address system that had no effect, the referee suspended the match for ten minutes. It was already the 65th minute and Militão had just put Madrid ahead. A derby broken by pure incivility that could cost Atlético the partial or total closure of the field, apart from the reputational damage. As is regulated, the resumption of the meeting was announced over the public address system. Courtois led his team’s departure alongside Modric and headed towards the goal. The whistles and expletives intensified, but the suspension notice and the mediation of the coach and the two red-and-white captains seemed to have an effect. Bad news for football, and a bad image for the League and for Atlético that of their coach and two players having to calm down the hooliganism hooded. The altercation ruined a derby in which there was a lot at stake and was buried by an incident televised for the entire planet. Also the final greeting from the Atlético players in the background that buried the derby.