Living in an English-speaking country, I heard a lot of sports programs after the Man. U. - Real Madrid match condemning the referee for giving a red card to Nani. -- "It should have been a yellow...", "His eyes were on the ball the whole time...", "It was reckless, not malicious...", "What was the referee thinking?!...", and so on.
That's all bullshit! Enough with the sympathy for this huge conglomerate called "United", from Manchester! The only thing this club is innocent of is paying the referee who made that call.
Alright, so the decision could have gone either way. God forbid, for once, the referee takes the road that doesn't give a break to this giant of football, Manchester United!...
Also, it's not a decision that was match-altering. Not at all. You see players sent off in other matches, for lesser offenses, and their teams don't make such a big fuss. They just play, 10 versus 11. (It wasn't 8 versus 11. It wasn't a clear penalty, not given. And may I remind you that Real lost a crucial piece of their puzzle, di Maria, in the first half? Mourinho did some shuffling around, and he fixed it. I'm sure he could have fixed having his team play 10 versus 11, too.)
So, these people who are condemning the Turkish referee should save their bitching for real crucial decisions. Like Lampard's unseen goal in that match against Germany, at World Cup 2010. That was a match-altering bad call. Nani's red card is small potatoes. United was still one goal up, at that point. And the incident did not lead to conceding a dangerous free kick, or anything of the sort, either. And I've seen so many teams playing 10 against 11, from worse positions, and winning. So, saying that the elimination of Nani - who's not always in the starting eleven (!!!) - was the main factor in Man. U.'s elimination is nothing more than trying to find an easy scapegoat.
What, the English team could not have played with 10 players, and without Nani, and won?
As a matter of fact, looking at the last twenty minutes independently, they seemed to do quite well, especially in attack. Where Nani would have had most of his contribution. They just didn't score (but it's not like Nani is a born goalscorer or had scored a lot of goals recently).
And what did Ferguson do, to help his team? Instead of doing any good switches and changes, he started bellowing at the referees, like he always does when things don't go his way.
(Maybe in the English league United players don't get sent off for those high challenges, but in international competitions you don't always get the favouritism you think you're entitled to, Ferg!)
So, yeah, basically I'm saying ferguson is not a very good coach. Apparently he built a team that seemed to crumble like a house of cards, in three minutes, for a reason so banal as having to play 10 versus 11.
But it wasn't the red card that changed the match. I don't think so. For me, the match-changing moment was Mourinho's genius move in substituting Luka Modric for Arbeloa. Not Nani's elimination. It was Modric's insertion. And his brilliant shot, in the 66th minute, that came out of nowhere.
If Modric had not scored then, who knows what the final score would have been. So, there!
Also, if you want to talk about unfair, how about Ramos' stupid own goal, three minutes after the interval?
Don't you think the mentality of the Real players could have been shattered at that point? But they came back.
Really, that's where I think a great coach makes the difference. Real had one, United didn't.
The Champions League is better with Real in it, now, than it had been had the English progressed.
I mean, really, this is a so-called contender that was beaten/humiliated by the likes of Galatasaray, Basel and CFR Cluj, in the Champions League over the past two years. (And they keep getting results in the English league way too easily.)
Maybe they didn't deserve to lose the match, but they deserved to go out.
Highlights:
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