Welcome to The Euro Debrief, a new Sky Sports column in which Adam Bate rounds up some of the key stories from the latest matches across the continent. This week: Raphinha has been busy backing Lamine Yamal to win the Ballon d'Or but it is tough to explain the Brazilian forward taking second billing to anyone right now. After scoring a hat-trick in midweek, he followed up with another in Barcelona's 3-1 win at Sevilla.
This was a perfect hat-trick - right foot, header, left foot - and further underlined the fact that Raphinha is far from out of position up front. At 29, this is a player belatedly finding his true calling. The variety of his goals proves that Raphinha can now do it all.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Barca are in irresistible form and are already five points clear of second and six ahead of Real Madrid after Jose Mourinho's side lost the derby to Atletico on Sunday. After an unusually subdued return to life in LaLiga, we are now getting the full Mourinho. The criticism of the appointed referee began in a veiled way beforehand and was rather more obvious after the 2-1 defeat.
Mourinho accused Miguel Angel Ortiz Arias of not handling the pressure and even brought printouts to the press conference. He talked of "two clear red cards" and those familiar with Cristian Romero's career will perhaps feel that he had a point regarding the Atletico defender's follow-through on Jude Bellingham, although the stills of that looked rather worse than the real-time replays. "The ones who should be really happy are the referee appointment committee because everything was very strange," Mourinho went on to complain.
"They assign a referee who at 41 has never been an international referee so it's clearly not because he's a great referee." The dark hints at conspiracies against his team are nothing new with Mourinho. But they cannot mask the evidence of a gulf to Barcelona that shows little sign of closing. As against Betis, when faced with quality opposition Real Madrid have been found wanting.
In the other games, Celta were big winners, putting five past Racing. But there is still no joy for Valencia after sacking Carlos Corberan. The final goal of the weekend in LaLiga was a vicious hit by La Real's Ander Barrenetxea to stun Mestalla in stoppage time.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
