68:30 was the time on the stadium scoreboard — just before 10:30 p.m. local time — when Sunday’s derby between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid was suspended.
Four minutes earlier, Éder Militão had put Real Madrid 1-0 up at the Metropolitano. Now, both teams were heading down the tunnel early, with over 20 minutes still left to play.
Not long after Militão’s goal, Atlético fans at the other end of the stadium, known as the “Fondo Sur” — the south end — had begun to throw objects onto the pitch towards Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. Courtois, who is a former Atletico player, had enthusiastically celebrated Militão’s goal. Lighters were thrown, and plastic bottles, and at least one plastic bag, its contents unclear.
Courtois called the attention of referee Mateo Busquets Ferrer, handing him a lighter picked up from the turf. The referee went across to speak with the match delegate, on the touchline, and shortly afterwards a first warning was issued to the crowd, over the stadium’s loudspeakers: “If this behavior does not stop, the game will be suspended.”
For a short while, play resumed. But more objects were thrown. Again, Courtois stopped to retrieve them, and play was halted. This time, Busquets Ferrer went to speak to the two teams’ coaches, Diego Simeone and Carlo Ancelotti.
“It was the correct decision by the referee,” Ancelotti said later. “It was the right thing to do. Nobody likes to stop the game, but I think the referee did well.”
Simeone and two of Atletico’s most experienced players, club captain Koke and defender José María Giménez, went across to speak to some of the fans behind the goal directly. TV cameras showed two men in the crowd wearing balaclavas.
“It was a moment of a lot of tension,” Koke told DAZN later. “It can’t happen on a football pitch, but we can’t blame everyone because of four [people].”
“Think about the club, think about your team,” Simeone told a post-match news conference when asked about what those conversations involved. “You aren’t helping the team. They said it wasn’t their fault. They said they’d been provoked.”
In all, three warnings were broadcast to fans over the stadium tannoy, asking them to stop. When they weren’t heeded, Busquets Ferrer sent the teams back to their dressing rooms. The game would be suspended for an initial 10 minutes, fans were told. If the incidents didn’t cease, it would then be paused indefinitely.
Some fans, including those with young children, could be seen leaving their seats. The game was now set to finish long after 11 p.m, on a Sunday night.
With 68:30 back on the clock, after a 15-minute wait, the teams emerged from the tunnel again. After a brief warm-up for the players, play got back underway at 10:45 p.m.
Understandably, the match took some time to get going again. The atmosphere was flat. Simeone signaled to the crowd to make some noise. In the end, there was some late drama. Ángel Correa levelled, to make it 1-1 in the 95th minute, to the delight of the home fans. Then Marcos Llorente was sent off. But all the talk after the game was of the stoppage, and what it says about this fixture, and where the blame should lie. Speaking to the media afterwards, both Simeone and Koke suggested that Courtois had been at least partly responsible for what had happened.
“We all have to help,” Simeone told DAZN, speaking pitchside. “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 [in 2013] — isn’t right. But we the protagonists don’t help when we provoke the fans… We have to know how we can celebrate a goal, not looking at the stands, with those gestures.”
“As players, we have to be more intelligent,” Koke said.
In their post-match news conferences, both repeated their assessment. “It doesn’t justify it, but we as protagonists can also help, to make sure people don’t react like that,” Simeone said. “It doesn’t justify it, but be careful with what we do, myself included.” Ancelotti did not want to engage in a discussion of what further action should be taken. “I’m just a football coach,” he said. “I control the sporting side.”
An hour and a half after the final whistle, Atletico released a strongly worded club statement. They condemned the throwing of objects from the crowd, said they were working with the police, and that one of the fans alleged to have been involved had already been identified. They would apply the club’s internal rules on the matter for such “very serious cases,” they said.
The verdict from a significant proportion of the 70,000 Atletico fans who had filled the Metropolitano for the derby was clear, too.
After the game finished, as Atletico’s players made a lap of the pitch as is customary, thanking fans for their support, they got to the Fondo Sur. As the players applauded that end, the rest of the stadium whistled.
