You may have read about it, but I doubt you’ve seen the actual incident.
Painful story short – Pedro Mendez tries to control / clear the ball near the touchline, and Ben Thatcher (described as a ‘good man off the field’ by Redknapp) runs in at full throttle, hitting Mendez in the face with an elbow and hurtling him into the advertising sideboards.
End result? Thatcher walks away with a yellow card, Mendez is knocked unconscious, has seizures, is put on oxygen and ultimately taken to the hospital where he’s kept overnight.
We talk about handballs not being given and dives being given as penalties, and we fight so much about who is cheating and who is not.
How about we tell our referees, first and foremost, to cut this sort of violence out of football?
Redknapp quote:
“The FA have to do something, it is there for all to see.
I do not want to see anyone suspended but how could that possibly not be a red card?
What do you have to do to get a red, kill someone?”
More on the story:
Sidenote: Rooney serves a 4-match ban because the defender he is supposed to have fouled forgot to jump for a regulation header and as a result got hit by Rooney’s arm when the United forward came back down. With that in mind, what sort of punishment would Thatcher get?
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