American players in England’s second-tier Championship have to be the most dangerous players out there. Two weeks after USMNT and Reading defender Matt Miazga was suspended for throwing punches, another American has committed a war crime on the field.
Arsenal’s Shkodran Mustafi woke up Wednesday morning with two holes in his face after receiving a Jamie Vardy boot to the side of his head during Tuesday’s match. The match between Arsenal and Leicester City ended 1-1 after Vardy scored the Foxes’ equalizer in the final moments of the match. Some argue the Leicester striker shouldn’t have been on the field after the incident with Mustafi before halftime.
Here is the controversial moment between Vardy and Mustafi in the 45th minute:
Luton Town arrived at Swansea City's Liberty Stadium on Saturday embroiled in a relegation battle, but the team became involved in a different kind of fight on the pitch. Luton striker James Collins put the Championship strugglers ahead 1-0 with a 72nd minute header, but the real action kicked off shortly after, following a series of increasingly harsh tackles:
This... well, it escalates. Put it that way. pic.twitter.com/NVuunTqYq9
It has happened plenty of times before: a player thinks he or she can get to a ball and ends up making a terrible tackle.
This definitely is not the case.
In the Ukrainian lower division, it looks like one player makes a genuine effort to kill the guy on the ball with a tackle that ends up coming close to his armpit.
Meanwhile in Ukraine.. pic.twitter.com/E64987Y5dC
It was the sort of tackle in which the final verdict would be better suited to a courtroom; a straight red card certainly doesn’t seem like enough justice for an act of violence perpetrated with the sole intention of seriously injuring another player.
During yesterday’s “friendly” between Sevilla and Liverpool at Fenway Park in Boston, Sevilla’s Joris Gnagnon was handed his marching orders in the 76th minute for this assault on 18-year-old Liverpool winger Yasser Larouci.