Simeone lashes out at fans stopping Madrid derby

Atlético Madrid coach Diego Simeone lashed out at fans who threw objects onto the pitch during the Madrid derby, forcing the game to be temporarily suspended, while also calling for players who “provoke” fans to “be careful.”

Sunday’s LaLiga game was suspended midway through the second half, after fans behind one of the Metropolitano’s goals repeatedly threw objects — including lighters and plastic bottles.

Éder Militão had put visitors Real Madrid 1-0 ahead in the 64th minute, and later, after play resumed following a 20-minute delay, Ángel Correa equalised in the 96th minute, before Atlético’s Marcos Llorente was sent off.

Simeone suggested Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was partly responsible for the fans’ actions, for his celebrations after Militão’s goal.

“We all have to help,” Simeone told DAZN. “Obviously the fans throwing lighters — like what happened at the Bernabeu, when Courtois was our player, and was hit on the head with a lighter — isn’t right. But we the protagonists don’t help when we provoke the fans and the fans get angry.

“[Throwing things] is wrong, it isn’t right, but we have to stay calm and understand the situation, know how we can celebrate a goal, not looking at the stands, with those gestures.”

When referee Mateo Busquets Ferrer first paused the game, fans were warned to stop through messages on the stadium’s loudspeakers, and Simeone and captain Koke went across to speak to them, urging calm.

“The message was to think about the club, think about your team,” Simeone said later. “You aren’t helping the team. They said it wasn’t their fault, they said they’d been provoked by the opposition goalkeeper.”

When more items were thrown, the referee called the two teams off the pitch, and an announcement was made that the game would be suspended for an initial 10 minutes, which was later extended to 15.

“The club will take the decisions they have to take with the fans who’ve committed these incidents,” Simeone said in his postmatch news conference. “We don’t need those fans in the stands, we need the fans who support us and think about the team and the club.

“It doesn’t justify it, but we as protagonists can also help, to make sure people don’t react like that. It doesn’t justify it, but be careful with what we do, myself included.”

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti praised the referee’s decision to pause the game.

“I think it was the correct decision,” he said. “It was the right thing to do. Nobody likes to stop the game, everybody wanted to play, but I think the referee did well.”

Ancelotti also confirmed Courtois would undergo tests on Monday for a muscular injury sustained near the end of the game.

A source told ESPN the goalkeeper feared he had suffered a small muscular tear.

Atleti also released a statement after the game: “From the moment that [objects] were thrown, the club’s security department have been working with the police to locate those involved, and one of them has already been identified. … These attitudes have no place in football and damage the image of a stadium that experienced a spectacular atmosphere with more than 70,000 fans in the stands, who have, in their great majority, shown exemplary behaviour.”

The interruption came a day after the Spanish league said it would ask police to act against the promoters of a social media campaign the league said was aimed at promoting racist acts against Vinícius at the derby.

The social media campaign was based on a hashtag encouraging Atlético fans to wear face masks, apparently to make it more difficult for authorities to identify individuals who participate in racist chants or insults.