Who knows, in another era (last year) or perhaps just another league (most likely La Liga), the referee somehow gets it in his head that Cologne’s Jhon Cordoba has committed a serious foul play here and red cards him. I mean, how else could you explain rugged Hamburg center back Kyriakos Papadopoulos screaming and rolling around like this? Obviously Cordoba has done something unspeakable, so send him off.
But this is 2017, and the Bundesliga is now using the Video Assistant Referee to analyze situations like this. Papadopoulos was given a yellow card for simulation, which, looking at the video evidence here, seems lenient.
Papadopoulos was obviously playing for Cordoba’s dismissal, which should trigger some kind of eye for an eye law, resulting in his marching orders and a 10-game ban.
Either way, he’s been significantly shamed and will go down in history as football’s first VAR convicted asshole.