Coaches differ in opinion over Torres red card

FC Barcelona coach Luis Enrique and Atletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone disagreed over the key moment in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie between their two sides on Tuesday night.

Atletico were leading 1-0 in the Camp Nou Stadium through a Fernando Torres goal before two poor challenges from the striker in which he had no chance of playing the ball, saw him sent off 10 minutes before the break.

The second half saw a revitalized Barca lay siege to the Atletico goal and two goals from Luis Suarez, who himself was lucky to stay on the pitch after an off the ball kick at Atletico defender Juanfran turned the game around to give Barca a narrow lead for next week's return leg.

"I saw the sending off, just as all of the fans did," said Luis Enrique. "both of the yellow cards were clear. It could be that they were naive but we saw them."

"Everyone is going to have their opinion of what happened depending on which side they support, but that isn't going to change what the referee saw," he said, admitting that the sending off changed the game.

"We were able to move the ball with pace and the second half worked out perfectly," commented the Barca coach.

Atletico coach Diego Simeone had a different view of things.

"I am not annoyed with Torres," he replied when asked if he was angry with the striker or the referee.

"The referees are there to decide," he said, before also saying he was "trying to think over what I saw over the game and the referee. It seems that in Europe we are starting to annoy someone," commented Simeone, who considers that the return leg will be "very attractive." Endi