Nearly everything this morning revolves around Lionel Messi. With a hat-trick against Algeria, the Argentine megastar scored his 14th, 15th, and 16th World Cup goals, drawing level with record holder Miroslav Klose.
But should it never have gone that far? One moment in the match is currently causing a huge stir in the football world.
Here’s what happened: midway through the first half, with the score at 1–0, Messi was involved in a challenge with Algeria’s Aïssa Mandi, with his studs making fairly clear contact with the defender’s calf.
Referee Szymon Marciniak did penalize the foul, but showed neither a yellow nor a red card. The video assistant also did not intervene — wrongly so, in the opinion of former Bundesliga referee Patrick Ittrich.
Speaking on ‘MagentaTV’ a few hours later, the TV pundit explained: “There are three criteria for a red card. In this case, that means first: he had absolutely no chance of playing the ball. Second: the point of contact
looks nasty. The only thing missing is the intensity.”
Even so, according to Ittrich, this incident “meets two of the three criteria for a sending-off.” His final conclusion was therefore: “For me, that’s a red card. In the Bundesliga, we’ve
seen a red card given for that many times before. From a rules perspective, a
sending-off would have been appropriate.”
So should Messi have already been sent off in the first half — and therefore not have been allowed to break Klose’s record at all? What do you make of Ittrich’s comments? Let us know in the comments!
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
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