Diego Llorente Hits Out at VAR Interference After Betis Draw With Rayo
Real Betis defender Diego Llorente vented his frustration at VAR after the draw with Rayo Vallecano, questioning whether it's actually helping the game.
Diego Llorente wasn’t exactly chuffed after Betis were held by Rayo Vallecano at La Cartuja — and it wasn’t just the result that got under his skin.
VAR on the receiving end
The Spanish centre-back had a proper go at VAR in his post-match interview with DAZN, and honestly, it’s hard not to see where he’s coming from. The game was repeatedly stopped for lengthy VAR reviews, and Llorente felt the whole thing is starting to do more harm than good.
His main gripe? The technology was brought in to deal with clear and obvious errors — but in his view, it’s now being used to intervene in situations that are anything but clear and obvious. As he put it, the VAR “vino a ayudar cuando las acciones son claras y manifiestas” — it came to help when things are clear and obvious — but that’s not what’s happening in practice.
The Valentín incident
One specific flashpoint wound him up in particular:
- A foul involving Valentín on Rayo’s Ratiu was reviewed for around five minutes early in the second half
- Betis winger Isi had already told the referee it was a fair challenge — that Valentín got there first and any contact was just follow-through
- The ref agreed, gave a yellow, and play resumed — only for VAR to drag everyone back and waste a chunk of the match
- Llorente’s point: if the cameras don’t give you a definitive answer, you shouldn’t be stopping the game in the first place
He also made an interesting link to football’s wider rhythm problem — noting that the same authorities pushing for goalkeepers to release the ball quickly are the ones allowing VAR to freeze matches for five minutes over a borderline tackle. A bit contradictory, that.
The bigger picture: referees losing the plot
Perhaps the sharpest bit of Llorente’s rant was his suggestion that endless VAR consultations are actually making referees worse at their jobs — effectively sending them a bit doolally by undermining their own on-field decisions. There’s something to that. If a ref makes a call, has it backed up by the captain of the fouling team, and still gets pulled to a screen, what does that do to his confidence?
Eyes on the Seville derby
Llorente didn’t dwell on the dropped points for too long, though. He quickly shifted focus to the upcoming Seville derby, making clear the squad knows exactly what’s at stake:
- Every team in the table is fighting for something right now
- Every point matters from here on in
- Playing that one in front of their own fans makes it worth more than just three points
Betis will be desperate to bounce back, and a derby is exactly the kind of game to do it — VAR permitting, of course.