Manuel González admitted Espanyol's defeat to Real Madrid in La Liga's opening match but praised his team's effort. "Until the 70th minute, the game went as we trained, but then it changed. We defended well, and the two goals came from two of our errors. The danger was from their players' quality and Mbappé's runs," he explained. The coach criticized refereeing bias: "Every time we took a throw-in, it was called against us, but not against them. Fouls that allowed us to counterattack weren't called against them. Standards must be normal." González also responded to Mourinho's criticism of Vinicius Júnior: "How can we not touch him? It's football. I didn't see any excessive challenge. The fouls he suffered were normal, no one was looking for him. It happens with other players too."