Zidane: “We won on the pitch, so it annoys me when refereeing issues become the focus”

Zinedine Zidane grew frustrated with the string of questions about refereeing during his post-match press conference after Real Madrid’s 2-1 win over Real Sociedad. The coach was asked multiple times about the incidents involving Vinícius, Adnan Januzaj and Karim Benzema, but wanted to instead talk about the football.

Responding to the questions on these matters, Zidane said: “I haven’t seen the incidents, but they’ve told me there was indeed a penalty on Vinícius and that the Benzema goal was legal. I don’t want to get involved in refereeing controversies. I like to talk about football, about the match. It annoys me when a refereeing issue becomes the focus and is the only thing that’s talked about because it makes it sound like we’ve not done anything on the pitch. We want to win on the pitch and we did that today. It was a deserved win.”

Some of the questions did focus on other matters, such as the fact that Los Blancos have gone top of the table. On that achievement, Zidane said: “We still have many games ahead, with fixtures every three days. This is a good win, but it doesn’t change our objective. We have eight rounds remaining.”

The coach also provided an injury update on Sergio Ramos, who had to limp off after hurting his knee. “He is hurting a lot, but we think it’s just a knock,” Zidane said.