Mourinho wants players to behave during clasico

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho has called on his players to play clean during his side’s away match on Monday against arch-rivals Barcelona.

“I hope that the players want to play and that they want to help the referee and they do not want to complicate his life and that we will only talk about football after the match,” he told a news conference on Sunday.

The much-anticipated match will be refereed by Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez, who has been accused of being “card-happy” and pro-Barcelona by Real fans.

“Barca is happy with Iturralde, Real is less happy with Iturralde,” said Mourinho.

“I am confident in the referee. We are going to play with the intention of helping the referee.”

UEFA announced Thursday it had started disciplinary proceedings against Mourinho and two of his players, Xabi Alonso and Sergi Ramos, over a ‘time-wasting’ controversy.

The pair are suspected of deliberately time wasting to get sent off in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s 4-0 Champions League win at Ajax and so wipe their disciplinary slates clean for the knockout stages of the competition.

With Real assured of qualifying for the last 16 as Group G winners it meant Alonso and Ramos will now only miss out on the ‘dead’ tie against Auxerre in their final group game after picking up their second yellow cards of the group stages in Amsterdam.

Two yellow cards in the group stages of the competition equates to a sending off.

Had the pair — who had already been issued one yellow card — not been sent off against Ajax, a second yellow card in the game against Auxerre left them exposed to a suspension for the knockout stages.

Real go into the fixture one point ahead of Barcelona, but Barcelona’s double victory in the fixture last year was crucial in determining the outcome of La Liga, which Barcelona retained by the margin of one point.

Both teams head into Monday’s match after demolishing opponents in their previous league matches last weekend.

Real thrashed Athletic Bilbao 5-1 on November 20 to maintain their perfect winning home form so far this season while Barcelona routed minnows Almeria 8-0 to equal the biggest ever away win in La Liga.

The return ‘clasico’ of the season is scheduled for April 17.