Costa Sees Red For Insulting Referee’s Mother

Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa was given a straight red card in Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Barcelona at the Camp Nou for crude remarks he made about the match official’s mother, according to referee Jesus Gil Manzano.

Costa was shown a straight red card in the 28th minute of the top-of-the-table clash for a verbal outburst at Manzano, who later reported the contents of the ex-Chelsea man’s derogatory message in his match report.

With a man advantage for over an hour, Barca finally found a breakthrough with a wonderful curled strike from Luis Suarez in the 85th minute and Lionel Messi sealed the win with a goal moments later.

After the match, Atletico coach Diego Simeone cursed his side’s bad luck with refereeing decisions in games against Barcelona

“I asked the referee if what he said was so bad because we have seen Barca players do the same thing, saying things right in the referee’s face and they did not get sent off, they got away with it,” Simeone told a news conference.

“If Costa really said what the referee claims he did, then he was correctly sent off, but we must be doing something wrong as we have had seven players sent off in 11 games.

“I remember we had Fernando Torres, a global icon, sent off here for making two fouls.”

Atletico midfielder Koke also aired his frustration.

“We were doing so well until the red card but all the small details went their way,” he said.

“Whenever we come here something strange happens, we’ve had a lot of red cards against Barca and not all of them have been fair.”

Atletico coped well with 10 men and had one glorious opportunity to break the deadlock in the second half from a free kick but midfielder Rodrigo headed narrowly over the bar.

“The plan was to close space through the middle and invite the opponents to play on the wings so we could have a tiny possibility of winning,” Simeone added.