Atlético beat Real Madrid 2-1 in a derby of refereeing row

Atlético de Madrid beat Real Madrid 2-1 at their own Metropolitano stadium on 20 September 2026, and the Spanish press has been picking the game apart ever since. According to Proceso in Mexico, this was the first Madrid derby of the season between the two clubs. El Debate lays out how the goals came: Alejandro Grimaldo opened the scoring from the penalty spot for 1-0, Jonathan David made it 2-0 in the 59th minute, and Antonio Rüdiger pulled one back for Real Madrid in the 89th.

The turning point was a sending-off. El Debate reports that Real Madrid defender Dean Huijsen was shown a red card in the second half for a foul on Giuliano Simeone inside the box, a decision reached after a VAR review (the video assistant named is Trujillo Suárez), which also produced the penalty Grimaldo converted. On one detail the outlets do not agree, and we are not going to settle it for you: El Debate places the incident in the 50th minute, while El Comercio in Peru and Proceso put it in the 52nd.

The refereeing is where the story really caught fire. El Debate notes that the man in the middle was Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias, born in Madrid and a member of the regional referees' committee, and, according to that source, the first Madrid-born official to take charge of an Atlético-Real Madrid fixture. Sports Illustrated en español adds the substance of Real Madrid's complaint: the club argued that Ortiz Arias should have sent off Cuti Romero in the first half for a studs-up challenge on Jude Bellingham's knee, despite a pitchside monitor review, and should also have dismissed Kang-In Lee for catching Fede Valverde's left ankle.

The bluntest verdict came from the losers themselves. Real Madrid's official website headlined its match report "Un pésimo arbitraje decide el derbi" ("A dreadful piece of refereeing decides the derby"), while CNN en Español devoted a separate piece to the row and the mutual accusations flying between the two clubs. That mix of a landmark local referee, a VAR-assisted red card and open institutional anger explains why, as Google Trends shows, the derby is one of the most searched topics in Spain today.

Sources : Proceso, El Debate, El Comercio, Sports Illustrated en español, Real Madrid (realmadrid.com), CNN en Español, Google Trends.