Xavi Hernandez blames errors that Barça "can't make" after Mallorca draw

Xavi Hernandez bemoaned mistakes as Barcelona were held to a 2-2 draw by Mallorca on Tuesday.

"The problem is they got in front with a mistake from us," he said. "Then when we were at our best, equalising before the break, they get a second. They're both mistakes from us which should not happen.

"We created chances, even though we thought it would be harder to do so, but we conceded too much. It's mistakes. We had the game under control, I remember chances for Joao, Ferran, Rafa...

"We have to improve in defence. Last season we were really solid and focused back there. We weren't bad today, but we've made two errors that we can't make. It's because of that we have dropped two points today."

A key moment came in the game when the referee overturned a decision to award a penalty for a foul on Lamine Yamal.

"At no moment does [Mallorca's Copete] touch the ball," Xavi added. "We have to see if there was contact, I thought there was a little. It seemed a penalty to me live.

"The referee went to the monitor and hasn't seen [a touch]. It is a really difficult decision for the referee."

Xavi reserved praise for Fermin, who came off the bench to rescue a point with his first competitive goal for Barça.

"He is a player that I liked in preseason," the Barça boss said. "He has hunger and ability. He can also score goals and help the team a lot. His goal earned us a point today. He's a dynamic player that can be useful for us."

Barcelona Manager Xavi Hernandez and his Real Mallorca counterpart Javier Aguirre were unsurprisingly on different sides of the fence when it came to Lamine Yamal‘s penalty appeal on Tuesday night.

The 16-year-old Blaugrana starlet was a constant menace after coming on for the final 25 minutes of the match, setting up Fermin Lopez’s equaliser. He also had a penalty awarded for a foul on him after driving into the box, and claiming he was brought down by a sliding challenge from Mallorca defender Jose Copete.

“I am passionate and I am intense, even though it may not seem like it. I like to win, I like to compete and I like my team to win. I will do everything possible and give orders. I thought it was a penalty against Lamine, live. I am always like that. I can’t hide it,” Xavi told Relevo after the match, clearly thinking that Lamine Yamal had a case.

Aguirre said that according to the rules, it should not have been a spot kick.

“If that is a penalty, as my friend Medina Cantalejo would say, it is a soft penalty. You can call it, yes. There is contact and the referee has messed up job. The boy is already going down just from the intention… It is not enough to fall. It is messed up being a referee, they [the players] constantly deceive me in training.”

“The first thing is that I looked at the new screen that we put up in the stadium and I saw the reaction of the children and our fans; I saw clearly that it was not a penalty. They did not step on him, it wasn’t blatant and they did not give a penalty. There is a kind of contact where he is already being throwing himself down. I think the referee does not see enough to call it. Last year they said that they were not going to call soft penalties. The VAR notifies him because I understand that they did not see it clearly. Lamine said that there was contact and there is a mini-contact.”

It has been a major issue throughout Spanish football over the past 18 months. Last season there was a directive from the Technical Committee for Referees (CTA) that they would no longer be giving soft penalties, something that didn’t exactly hold up last season.

Aguirre refers there to Luis Medina Cantalejo, Head of the CTA, and it is probably fair to say that the majority of football fans would rather soft penalties are not given. The problem is the consistency, and with VAR, things often look worse in slow motion.