Arda Güler threw an elbow during Real Madrid's 4-1 demolition of Sevilla and got away with it. The referee saw nothing. The replays showed plenty.
José Mourinho, always eager to defend his players, claimed he hadn't even watched the footage. He dismissed the whole thing as media obsession, suggesting the scrutiny around Güler's elbow was overblown. That's Mourinho's standard play when contact goes unpunished on his side of the pitch.
The bigger issue here is consistency. VAR exists for moments exactly like this one. Either it was a red card offense or it wasn't. The system either caught it or failed. Mourinho's feigned ignorance doesn't change what happened on the field.
Madrid won comfortably regardless, so this likely dies quickly. But Güler got a gift from the officials. In Europe's top leagues, that kind of leniency rarely holds up if the match had been closer or the stakes higher.