Didier Drogba is proclaiming his innocence this morning, after the red card that saw him booted late in Chelsea’s Champions League game against Inter Milan yesterday. The Ivory Coast forward admits that he stepped on the back of Thiago Motta’s leg last night but claims he didn’t deserve to go off:
“It’s really difficult to take. Yes, I stepped on his calf but I don’t think I deserved to be sent off. I guess these things happen and the only thing that matters is that we are out of the competition.”
Right, so you deliberately stomped on his heel but that’s not a red? Got it: these things just happen, don’t they? Any suggestion by Drogba that it was an accident is laughable so I am assuming that Carlo Ancelotti needs to have a chat with old Drog about the rules of the game!
Video after the jump for those who missed it.
It’s a disgrace – a fucking disgrace!
In any case, he was already on a yellow and there is no way that isn’t a yellow at the very least, right?
Its a straight red. Stomping on a dude? Professional foul.
Drogba is an idiot. That being said how frustrating is the drama of the Italian players + Thiago Motta and even Sneijder at one point last night, every time someone comes near them. Its really out of hand and difficult to watch. I have a bad feeling I’ll being seeing a lot of this in S. Africa unfortunately. I watch some Serie A and its not this bad, but when they play in big games outside of Italy its ridiculous; hard to watch and I don’t see how they can have any respect for themselves behaving this way. appalling, just slows the game down and makes a spectacle of tick tack fouls.
@Ned – I agree that it is a red. But even taking his supposition that he shouldn’t have been off – he can’t be saying that it isn’t even worth a yellow, can he?
Watching Chelsea melt down every year as they go out is a new highlight of the Champs League for me.
So he’s out for CL games next year then? First 3 group matches, I would guess. Like deja vu all over again.
should have been a red for Thiago-Motta as well
Please don’t start with this. Diving or exagerating isn’t exclusive to Italian or other non-english and non-Prem players (see, Gerrard, Steven). Furthermore, I fail to see why so many people worry about diving or exagerating fouls. While annoying as hell, it would make more sense to me that people get upset at some of the quite frankly idiotic tackling going on in the sport.
the next time I hear an english commentator chuckle at saying the words “Paul Scholes Special” after he barely missed amputating a fellow professionals leg Im going to be sick.
That last comment was in response to UKhanDoIt’s response, just to be clear
@joep
Not exclusive, but perhaps taken a step further which is still two steps two far in my opinion.
Frankly i’m bemused by your apparent acceptance of diving and rolling ten metres on the ground in apparent agony; i much prefer watching the game and not some guy milking it for a couple minutes. What every happened to playing through it (see hockey playoffs)
I mean, they’re symptomatic of each other. Players dive because of idiotic tackling, and idiots tackle harder because “well, if I’m going to get blown up for it, I might as well get value for money.”
The ref has two options there: 1) Drogba intentionally stamped and a red or 2) Drogba slipped as he is getting up and play on. Once he called it a foul, it was straight red. I could have seen him give a penalty for Motta hugging Drogba at full speed, but the stamp was a separate issue.
The ref was following the ball and then he turned his attention to the box where the ball was about to be crossed. What he probably saw was Drogba throwing Motta over his back and then stomping on his calf. Red all the way.
Funny how Drogba stomps him and then pulls his leg up high like he accidentally rolled his ankle and hurt it and never intended to cleat the shit out’ve dude’s ankle.
@UKhanDoIt
Diving is a much, much larger issue in England than it is anywhere else in the world, I think. An issue in the sense that people get so worked up about it. I don’t approve of diving at all, but if you ask me if I would rather see a player roll over a few extra times than see a player injure another player than the answer is yes. I sometimes get the feeling that isn’t the the case in England.