Real Madrid Star Bellingham Speaks After Osasuna Red Card: ‘It’s A Mistake’

Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham shed light on his shock red card at Osasuna on Saturday from the mixed zone in El Sadar.

Madrid was winning 1-0 through an early Kylian Mbappe strike when Bellingham was dismissed, after what appeared to be a disagreement with the match official approaching half time.

Thanks to a penalty converted by Ante Budimir for the hosts around the hour mark, Los Blancos dropped vital points on the road through a 1-1 draw ahead of title race rivals Atletico Madrid and FC Barcelona playing later this weekend.

Head coach Carlo Ancelotti spoke to the press before Bellingham saying that, “We started well and finished well with one less. The red card with Jude, I don’t think he understood him well. He tells him to ‘f*ck off’, not ‘f*ck you’ [in English].”

Before the microphones in the mixed zone, Bellingham apologized to his teammates “as I put them in difficult situation today”, and shed some light on the incident.

“It’s clear that a mistake has been made, there has been a communication error,” the Englishman insisted.

"I don’t want to say what I said again, but it’s more like ‘joder’ (a Spanish phrased often said to mean ‘f*ck’), and I want everyone to know that I didn’t mean to put the team in a situation to leave them with ten men.

"If you review the video you can see that it is not the same as what the [referee’s] minutes say. I hope that the Federation takes it into account. I haven’t insulted anyone, you can see it clearly in the video.

“I don’t even say it directly to the referee, I say it to myself. It was a lack of understanding, a clear mistake by the referee,” the number 5 again reiterated.

Bellingham therefore took a similar line as his coach, who fought his player’s corner and claimed innocence on his behalf.

“I would be in favour of talking to the referee, not Bellingham … He has done nothing to be sent off. There’s nothing to talk about with him,” Ancelotti stated.

In his match report, though, referee Munuera Montero wrote that Bellingham did indeed say to him: ‘F*ck you’", as relayed by MARCA.