It’s a fact of life that big teams get all the decisions when they play at home.
You see it in nearly all levels of football but none more so than the very top.
Referees have admitted that it’s hard to give penalties to the home team in massive stadiums but Barcelona seem to be living blessed existence right now.
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The La Liga leaders haven’t conceded a penalty for 74 games, a record which stretches back to the season before last.
Which means they haven’t given away a spot kick for the whole of last season and all of this season so far.
That doesn’t seem possible does it?
Especially when in the last three seasons they have been awarded 32 penalties in the last three seasons.
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The flare came yesterday with Barcelona leading 2-1 Samuel Umtiti looked like he blocked an Alaves shot with his hand inside the area.
The pictures make it pretty clear that the ball made contact with his arm in the box, but the referee either felt it was accidental or too close for him to get out of the way.
In isolation, that would not be a remarkable call, but when you think that it’s been two years since a Barcelona keeper faced a spot kick in the league it does ask the question of how that’s possible.
As you can imagine, once this record was publicised on Twitter it split fans straight down the middle.
There were calls of Uefalona, suggesting a possible conspiracy between the governing body and the Spanish giants, jokes that Real Madrid should sign their own referee and even a suggestion that there is no such word as penalty in Barcelona.
It fuelled all sorts of theories already held by Real Madrid fans.
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