There are derby moments that settle games, and then there are derby moments that expose a team’s nerve in one brutal flash. Atlético de Madrid vs Real Madrid delivered the latter. At 0-0 at the start of the second half in the 7ª jornada, Dean Huijsen grabbed Giuliano Simeone in the area, the referee first reached for yellow, and then VAR stepped in to turn the caution into a straight red. In a match already loaded with tension, that was the kind of decision that changes everything.
Manolo Lama cut straight to the heart of it: “Si no le agarra, llega al balón.” That is the uncomfortable truth for Real Madrid. Huijsen did not just make a mistake; he made one in the penalty area, in a derby, when the margin for error was already razor-thin. The argument that followed the review was almost as telling as the decision itself: “Como es un agarrón, no estás buscando el balón.” In other words, once the grab is clear, the referee’s job becomes brutally simple.
This is where the match stopped being about control and started being about damage limitation. Real Madrid were suddenly down to ten players, forced into an immediate tactical reshuffle, and Atlético had the kind of momentum gift no side ever turns down in a game of this magnitude. Grimaldo did the rest from the spot, converting the penalty after the red-card incident and turning a tense derby into a one-goal game with all the pressure shifted onto Real Madrid.
VAR did what the first decision would not
The original yellow card was always going to be under scrutiny. Once the review took place, the logic changed: this was no longer a minor infringement being debated in the abstract, but a clear holding action in the box with the ball and the attacker both in play. The referee’s first call was corrected, and rightly so. In a match this important, the officials could not afford to wave away a decisive incident just because it happened fast.
For Real Madrid, the problem is not simply that Huijsen was sent off. It is the way the whole sequence handed Atlético a psychological and numerical advantage at exactly the worst possible moment. One reckless grab, one VAR review, one straight red card, one penalty converted, and the derby had a new shape. That is how elite matches are broken open now: not by volume, but by one costly lapse that everyone can see in replay.
Huijsen will not be the first defender to learn that lesson the hard way, and he will not be the last. But in a clash like Atlético vs Real Madrid, the price of that lesson is immediate. Real Madrid were left chasing the game with ten men, and Atlético were left with the upper hand they had been waiting for. In a derby decided by details, this was the detail that mattered most.
