Watch: Cristiano Ronaldo sent off for scoring, taking shirt off, then diving
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a pretty special goal to put Real Madrid up 2-1 in the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup on Sunday. Then his evening went south, and it went south very, very quickly.
First, here’s the goal:
Oh cmon now Ronaldo pic.twitter.com/e0kZC0fpgd
— Sir J Baggington II (@jamalomar_) August 13, 2017
Ronaldo, of course, couldn’t keep his shirt on after scoring such a screamer. That earned him a yellow card. He didn’t care.
Until he did care two minutes later.
Ronaldo was through, in on goal, and went down under minimal contact from Barcelona defender Samuel Umtiti. He was shown a second yellow, and therefore a red:
And CR red carded for THIS. pic.twitter.com/5kU3uTOoOW
— José A. (@Galapago555) August 13, 2017
To make matters worse, he then shoved the referee:
Ronaldo shoves referee pic.twitter.com/jB1YRrjSXk
— That Dude (@cjzer0) August 13, 2017
To be fair to Ronaldo, the yellow for the supposed dive was extremely harsh. Perhaps he was trying to draw a penalty, but not every tumble to the ground is a dive. There’s a middle ground that doesn’t need to warrant a yellow card. There was certainly some contact, and Ronaldo didn’t appear to be trying to con the referee, so this probably should have fallen in that middle ground.
Plus, earlier in the game, Luis Suarez won a penalty with what looked like a far more blatant dive.
suarez pic.twitter.com/cIt5mIKoU7
— Amiethecat (@AmieYouCat) August 13, 2017
But let’s put aside the issue of whether or not the sending off was deserved, and marvel at how amazing this is. Simply amazing. To recap:
58′ — Ronaldo enters game as substitute
80′ — Scores brilliant goal to put Real Madrid ahead
80′ — Takes shirt off, gets yellow card
82′ — (Supposedly) dives, gets second yellow, sent off
82′ — Shoves ref
Only Cristiano Ronaldo. Only he could pull this off.
Meanwhile, despite playing a man down for the final eight minutes plus stoppage time, Madrid went on to add a third goal through Marco Asensio. That means they’ll take a two-goal lead, and three away goals, back to Madrid for the second leg on Wednesday.