Pellegrini lashes out at referee after Barcelona rout Betis

Pellegrini walked out of the Benito Villamarín with a mix of anger and resignation. Betis fell 2-5 to Barcelona at home, but for the Chilean coach, the final score didn't tell the real story of what happened on the field. And he pointed the finger squarely at the match referee, Ricardo de Burgos.

"A feeling of helplessness" was the phrase Pellegrini chose to sum up what he felt after the final whistle. According to the coach, the 2-5 is "a result that doesn't reflect the match," and everything turned on a string of "incomprehensible and inexplicable decisions" by the referee.

So what exactly bothered him so much? Pellegrini broke down his complaint play by play with a clarity that left no doubt about his frustration.

They left us down a man, he disallowed a goal absurdly because the infraction supposedly happened 30 meters from the play and had no bearing on the goal at all. On the third one, a player of ours gets a boot to the head. The red card is a provocation from Lamine Yamal. He gave one guy a yellow and sent off the otherManuel Pellegrini

The Chilean went further into the disallowed goal, the one that would have made it 2-2. There, he explained, "Cucho Hernandez goes to control it with his chest and the Barcelona defender gets in the way and the ball hits his hand," and that was exactly what led to the infraction being called.

Pellegrini also put the match in context, acknowledging it was an intense, physical game. "It was a match with a lot of incidents and fouls," he admitted, saying he understood "the referee was on edge." Even so, he insisted that this kind of decision "ruins the spectacle" for the nearly 70,000 fans who packed the stadium.

The silver lining in defeat

Beyond his frustration with the officiating, the Betis boss had praise for two names in particular: Ceballos and Lo Celso, who started their first match of the season together. Pellegrini said the idea behind that lineup was "to have more of the ball," a goal the team achieved until everything was thrown off balance by Facundo Bernal's red card.

Despite the unfavorable result, the coach took a positive view of his team's performance while the match was played on equal terms. Pellegrini stressed that Betis managed to "go toe to toe with Barcelona eleven against eleven," something he valued especially because facing "the best team in the competition isn't easy." For the Chilean, Barcelona could only tip the scales "with an extra man" on the field.