Yellow card for Luis Suárez? Itturalde González reviews Sporting case | OneFootball

Unlike Pedro Henriques, Iturralde González approves João Pinheiro’s decision to show Luis Suárez a yellow card for simulation, after the Sporting forward himself admitted it was not a penalty and following the VAR review.

"It is a very curious play and I will explain why. First, it is an indirect free kick and a booking for Suárez for simulating a foul. It seems to me a very good decision by the referee, who is well assisted by VAR", one can read in his exclusive statements to the newspaper Record.

The former international referee explains why the yellow card was correctly shown. "In these kinds of actions, what the forward does is try to "win" a penalty by leaving his leg on the ground, dragging it to make contact with the goalkeeper and thus make it look more like a penalty. In this action, what the forward does is jump over André Gomes and then throw himself to the ground. This situation is very rare and it is the most difficult kind of play for a referee, because you do not know whether the goalkeeper gets there first or whether it is the forward who touches the ball first. But in this case, and this is the interesting part, the forward jumps and then throws himself down. We will not see this kind of play many more times, but both VAR and the referee got it right", he said.

Despite his opinion, other experts do not understand João Pinheiro’s decision, as is the case with Jorge Faustino. "Suárez ended up losing his balance on his own while moving away from the goalkeeper (no simulation: wrong yellow card). The penalty was correctly overturned", he says, adding that it was a "situation where there was a lack of sensitivity when Suárez had shown an act of fair play".

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