Barcelona’s Raphinha will likely be suspended for the start of next season’s Champions League
Raphinha is likely to be sanctioned by UEFA for his conduct after Barcelona’s Champions League elimination by Atletico Madrid last night.
Raphinha is currently injured but was still present at the Metropolitano as Barca won the second leg of their quarter-final tie 2-1 but went out 3-2 on aggregate.
Barca were already feeling a sense of injustice following last week’s clash at Camp Nou, making a formal complaint to UEFA after claiming they should’ve received a second half penalty when Marc Pubill handled the ball inside the area.
Their case was deemed ‘inadmissible’ but it increased the tension around the return game and the visitors showed their determination by establishing a 2-0 lead inside 24 minutes thanks to goals from Lamine Yamal and Ferran Torres.
Ademola Lookman pulled one back shortly after the half-hour mark but Barca’s hopes of a grandstand finish to rescue the tie were effectively ended when defender Eric Garcia was sent off with 11 minutes to go for a foul on Alexander Sorloth.
‘It was a stolen match’, claims furious Barcelona star
Raphinha showed his anger after the final whistle, making gestures to the home fans that suggested Atletico would be knocked out in the next round, before letting his emotions spill over in the mixed zone, telling TNT Sports Brasil: “For me, it was a stolen match.
“I don’t want to talk about the refereeing, but we played extremely well, they committed I don’t know how many fouls, and the referee didn’t even pull out a single yellow card against them.
“The refereeing was very bad in all the decisions he made. What I really want to understand is, by what criteria is Barca being refereed?
“I’d really like to understand the secret behind this fear that haunts these people at the thought of Barca winning.
“Yes, we’re all human and we can make a mistake in a match, that’s something I can understand, but for it to happen in two consecutive matches? That’s not normal. I think the result of this double confrontation isn’t fair.”
Neymar precedent could mean three-game ban for Barcelona’s Raphinha
Raphinha’s actions, and words, will likely result in a sanction that could potentially see him miss the opening games of next season’s Champions League.
Then Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar was handed a three-game ban by UEFA – later reduced to two at the Court of Arbitration for Sport – for describing the decision to hand Manchester United an injury-time penalty in the Champions League round of 16 in 2019 as “a disgrace” on social media.
UEFA will also take a dim view of Raphinha’s taunting of the Atletico fans. Real Madrid trio Antonio Rudiger, Kylian Mbappe and Dani Ceballos were fined for gestures they made after last season’s round-of-16 win at the Metropolitano.
