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Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson insists that Real Madrid players apologised for the red card that put Nani out of the Champions League clash and, according to Ferguson, cost Manchester United the game.
Ferguson also said that the side have been knocked out of three Champions League competitions due to refereeing decisions (2004 and 2010 previously) and that Real Madrid’s defence was all down to goalkeeper Diego Lopez.
“A couple of their players did apologise’’. He told The Telegraph: “Cristiano Ronaldo was great. He came into the dressing room after the game and sat with the players. It was good. He said that himself [that United were unlucky]. I don’t think Arbeloa was that bad. He didn’t stay down too long. He got up. Sergio Ramos was the one that really influenced the referee, maybe.
“Nani’s disappointed. He probably has that feeling of guilt but I don’t think he did anything wrong. It’s hard to keep your faith when you see these things happen. That’s three European Cups we’ve been knocked out of due to refereeing decisions. We’d have won two of them. I have no doubt about that.”
“We could have scored five goals in the last 15 minutes. If we’d scored a second, we probably would have won it. I think Jose said that himself. There was all this issue with Real about [Iker] Casillas. But Casillas wouldn’t have saved the shots that the boy [Diego] López saved. Going out to Danny Welbeck, going down at Robin van Persie, coming out and whacking [Nemanja] Vidic in the head. Casillas isn’t that type of goalkeeper and that saved them, having that type of goalkeeper. We know we were the better team.
“When you’re at this club a long time, it is not always silver linings. There are always dark moments and bad days. In general we recover very well and we’ll do that again.”
