Atletico Madrid have fired back at Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho after he arrived at Sunday's post-derby press conference brandishing printed screenshots of two incidents he believed warranted red cards for their opponents.

Mourinho made his displeasure clear after Real were beaten 2-1 in the Madrid derby, insisting that Atletico should have had two players sent off in the first half. He claimed the errors fundamentally altered the course of the match.

Atletico's sharp social media response

Atletico wasted no time responding. On Monday, the club posted twice on their X account — the first being a video of a sheet of paper rolling out of a printer bearing the hashtag #StopAcosoArbitralYA, which translates as "stop referee harassment now."

A second post featured a photograph of Mourinho at the news conference, carrying the same message. Within two hours, the combined posts had racked up two million views on X.

Diego Simeone's side are no strangers to social media warfare. Earlier this summer, Atletico repeatedly mocked Barcelona on X over their attempts to sign club talisman Julian Alvarez.

Real Madrid's official position

Mourinho was not alone in his criticism. Real's own match report, published on the club's official website, described the derby defeat as having been decided by "dreadful refereeing" by Ortiz Arias. It was Real's second loss of the season, following a 1-0 defeat to Real Betis in September.

"We can skip the press conference because the story of the match is right here," Mourinho told reporters, holding up the printed images on sheets of A4 paper. "Those were two clear red cards. Given the difficulties we faced afterwards playing 11 against 10, we can only imagine what 50 minutes of 11 against nine would have been like."

Mourinho added: "So I'll just have to limit myself to hugging my players, who gave it their all and played a first half, showed great class and character, setting us up perfectly to win the second half."

Simeone's measured reply

When asked about Mourinho's outburst, Simeone took a more composed tone, saying he respects everyone's point of view — while delivering a thinly veiled warning about public conduct.

"I understand that we're in a privileged position with a lot of public scrutiny, as coaches, and whether it's Mourinho, [Barcelona manager Hansi] Flick, [Real Betis boss Manuel] Pellegrini, me, or anyone else, we need to be careful about what we say," Simeone said. "We have to know how to respect others, the referees, our colleagues. And when someone crosses that line of respect, it's not right — you can't cross that line."