Dangerous challenges, confusing guidance and the need to protect players.
Dangerous challenges, confusing guidance and the need to protect players.
“The panel felt very strongly that this type of challenge has no place on the pitch.” So said the Key Match Incidents panel on Lisandro Martinez’s two-footed challenge on Daichi Kamada during Manchester United’s weekend game at Crystal Palace. And well said. Yet the panel then legitimised this two-footed challenge, arguing it was worthy of only a yellow, on a par with kicking the ball away. One delays a restart, the other could damage an opponent. Spot the anomaly.
Martinez is not averse to full-throttle challenges. Kamada’s left foot was planted and side on, his ankle exposed. Kamada was fortunate that Martinez’s leap ended with his feet landing just short of the Palace attacker, mainly because Kamada took evasive action. Martinez himself was fortunate that Kamada was remarkably phlegmatic in his response. He could have milked the moment and ensured David Coote sent Martinez off. Certain other pros would have.
Martinez was booked by Coote, VAR Chris Kavanagh checked but did not send the referee to have another look on the monitor. So fans inside Selhurst Park had reviewed the challenge on their phones, fans tuning in had seen the replay and yet Coote, the man who made the decision, saw it once. Kavanagh should have helped out, he should have sent Coote to the monitor and Martinez should have walked.
The KMI, following Uefa “guidance” on such situations, concluded that Coote’s call was right “on the basis that the action by Martinez had been completed and no contact was made”. That was only because Kamada, sensing the danger, slightly checked his stride. Carrying the KMI’s line of thinking to its logical conclusion, a red card should have been applied only if Kamada had been injured. This is a very dangerous ruling. It could lead to deliberately intimidating challenging.
What message does it send? That you can leave the ground and fly into a tackle, that two-footed is permissible? Who reviews the reviewers? The KMI panel’s flawed, contradictory thinking would last 30 seconds in a court of law before being shredded by a KC.
It cannot hide behind the Uefa “guidance” defence if no contact then no red. Guidance is not binding. The essence of the word “guidance” surely left room for manoeuvre and for the appliance of commonsense. Given the presence of ex-pros on the panel they would instinctively know what was a dangerous challenge. And this was one. Under the laws stating that a challenge that “endangers the safety of an opponent…must be sanctioned as serious foul play” then the only acceptable conclusion was red card.