Good save, to be fair.
In the biggest game of the La Liga season each year, Real Madrid and Barcelona players are always prepared to do anything to give themselves the best chance of victory.
We’ve seen a lot of rule bending, cynical tackles and diving over the years in Clásicos and with so much riding on every one of these matches, it’s hard to blame the players.
Today, Real Madrid went into the game 11 points behind arch-rivals Barcelona and needed a victory to kick-start their comeback. After a cagey first half, Barcelona took the lead early in the second with a perfectly executed counter attack, started off by Sergio Busquets and finished off by Luis Suarez. Madrid could not afford to concede another.
As Barça charged forward on another attack, Madrid defender Dani Carvajal only saw one option to prevent them from going 2-0 up at the Bernabéu: take over goalkeeping duties.
https://twitter.com/SkyRevista/status/944559633015771138
In a goalmouth scramble, not a regular feature of the Clásico, the Spaniard instinctively saved a header from Paulinho with his hand, almost identical to Luís Suárez’s infamous goal-line clearance against Ghana in the 2010 World Cup for Uruguay.
He was consequently sent off and Leo Messi buried the penalty, so it turns out it wasn’t actually worth sacrificing his place on the pitch.
But surely Zidane will empathise with someone getting sent off for a moment of madness in a big game.
