Alavés vs Getafe: The Femenía Red Was Right, the VAR Process Wasn't
Kiko Femenía was off before halftime at Mendizorroza, and Getafe never recovered. Deportivo Alavés beat their 10-man opponents 3-0 in Saturday's LaLiga opener, with Nahuel Tenaglia, Mariano Díaz and Mikel Rodríguez all scoring in the final 25 minutes once Getafe's resistance broke, according to the match report from Cadena SER's Tiempo de Juego. But the night was decided in the 39th minute, when referee Orellana Cid booked Femenía for a hard challenge on the first look, then was sent to review it. Three minutes later, he reversed himself and showed red.
That reversal is defensible on its own terms. A challenge serious enough to prompt a review and a subsequent red is, by definition, one the on-field call got wrong the first time. What's harder to defend is the pattern it fits into. Orellana Cid was standing close enough to the play to make an instant decision, and he made one: a yellow. The review process still pulled him back to change it.
The intervention problem
That's the part LaLiga's own broadcast panel picked up on within the hour. Discussing the sending-off on Tiempo de Juego, pundit Pedro Martín noted that UEFA had said this season referees, not the video room, were supposed to be the ones making the calls, and argued this game showed the opposite, plenty of what he called intervencionismo. It's a fair complaint. If a referee with a clear sightline still has to be talked into upgrading his own decision, the question isn't really whether the red card was correct. It's why the system needed three extra minutes and a second look to get there.
Getafe's night didn't get easier from that point. Down a man from the 42nd minute, they held out until Tenaglia broke through in the 73rd, then conceded twice more in stoppage time as Alavés cashed in their extra man. A 3-0 scoreline flatters the gulf that produced it. Take away the sending-off and this is a tighter, different game.
None of that excuses the tackle. If it warranted a review, it likely warranted the card. But a competition that keeps needing its video room to correct referees standing ten meters from the play has a consistency problem that runs well past one Saturday in Vitoria.
