After Manchester United's loss, Imanol Alguacil lashes out, saying, "There was not a neutral refereeing performance."

After losing to Manchester United 5-2 on aggregate in their round of 16 match, Real Sociedad is eliminated from the 2024–25 Europa League. After taking an early lead in the second leg at Old Trafford, the Basque team had seemed on the verge of victory at one point, but they would ultimately lose 4-1 that evening.

To put it mildly, the second leg was highly contentious. The visitors also had Jon Aramburu sent off for a last man challenge minutes after he had been come on, and three penalties were given—two for Man United and one for La Real—with one more being revoked following a VAR review.

Imanol Alguacil, the head coach, made it obvious that La Real was understandably quite angry with referee Benoit Bastien. According to Diario AS, he stated unequivocally that the French official prevented his team from playing Man United.

"You don't even know how to explain it without making excuses; it's cruel." Although United was superior, I would have preferred a one-on-one match. The referee whistled the penalties that weren't there because he didn't want to whistle the single one that was. Neither Manchester United nor ourselves deserved a referee like that.

"The refereeing performance was not impartial. I feel terrible for the supporters since, in addition to those choices, the match was cancelled. It's unfortunate that it has been going on nonstop since the fourteenth minute. The refereeing has prevented us from competing, thus the players are not at fault. I'm not sure what might have happened, but we got the game off to a good start.

La Real must get over this setback before their next game, which is against Rayo Vallecano on Sunday, even though it is a tough pill to swallow. They are still in the Copa del Rey and have the opportunity to qualify for Europe next season through La Liga.

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