Real Madrid beat their traditional rivals Barcelona 2-1 in the first-round Clasico of the Spanish league, at the Spotify Camp Nou.
The website "Archivo VAR", which specialises in controversial refereeing incidents, handed Clasico referee Juan Martinez Munuera a rating of 5.75 out of 10.
According to Archivo VAR, Munuera had to calm the atmosphere from the opening minutes. He tried not to rush into yellow cards, wary of setting an overly lenient benchmark in a match of this kind. And he was right to do so.
Neutrality marked his performance throughout the first half, but the second brought extra problems. He dealt with two controversial incidents and settled both reasonably well, handling one perfectly while falling short on the other.
In the closing minutes, the referee lost some of his consistency, overlooking a clear yellow card for Camavinga. Overall, though, he managed an extremely difficult match, and his positives far outweighed his negatives.
Two errors came with the cards. On the other incidents, he got several calls right.
First, he waved away a challenge by Joao Cancelo on Diomande that came close to crossing the permitted limits. As a still image the moment looks harsh, but in motion it reads as contact that scraped the opponent's leg. This one clearly warranted a yellow card.
He was entirely right, on the other hand, not to award a possible penalty for Alejandro Balde touching the ball with his hand, in a play that featured three simultaneous touches inside a single second.
Purely accidental, the handball did not warrant a foul. Here, the referee got it exactly right.