Iturralde González: Suárez deserved card for Bednarek clash in Sporting v Porto | OneFootball

Iturralde González analyzed the controversial incident between Jan Bednarek and Luis Suárez in the match between Sporting and Porto, in the first leg of the Portuguese Cup semi-final, considering that it was a difficult incident for the refereeing team to interpret, but he does not see grounds for a red card, but rather a yellow card.

"I don't see it as excessive force, but rather a reckless challenge by Luis Suárez on Bednarek, with the elbow and deserving of a yellow card," he told the newspaper 'Record'. "It was a very difficult match for Cláudio Pereira, because this same play, at this speed and with the elbow connecting in this way, could lead the referee to believe it was excessive force."

The former referee also highlighted that everything always depends on the referee's interpretation: "For me, the warning is clear, now the difficulty is understanding whether it was with excessive force or not. I have many doubts, and when that happens, referees usually choose the yellow card instead of the red, just like when you have doubts between yellow or nothing… they end up not calling anything."

Finally, he reinforced that, in his opinion, the yellow card would be the most appropriate decision: "It's a very clear yellow. This poor referee had many complicated incidents during the match, it must have been very stressful, especially in a big game like Sporting vs Porto, when you have many plays that are unclear, and one after the other. He was very unlucky," he concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.