FC Barcelona are seemingly back to winning ways as Xavi’s men got a comfortable 3-1 victory over Alaves in their last La Liga match last night.
However, there was still a negative point from this match that can hurt the Catalans going into their next league game. The Brazilian striker Vitor Roque, who scored the last goal for Barcelona, was shown two yellow cards, which led to an expulsion in the 72nd minute, and he is now also suspended for the upcoming game against Granada.
According to SPORT, Barcelona believe that the card and the suspension given to Roque were unfair, particularly because no foul took place for which the Brazilian was shown the second yellow card. As a result, Barcelona will appeal against his expulsion and suspension.
There were several actions in the sequence of play that led to the red card that Barcelona were left fuming about. Firstly, there was a foul on Pedri that referee did not whistle, and incorrectly gave advantage to Barcelona to keep playing. Xavi also raised this point from the sidelines in the game.
The ball was taken by Lewandowski, but he lost it to an Alaves player. Vitor Roque was up against Rafa Marin when the ball got to him. In this fight for the ball, Roque was alleged to have stomped upon Rafa Marin’s foot, and the latter made the most of it to make it look like a very robust challenge. The referee showed the second yellow to Roque for this action.
However, images from the game show that no actual contact took place between Roque’s studs and Marin’s foot. It can be argued that Roque came with his studs up, but there was clearly no foul as no contact took place.
VAR did not come into play for this action as it was only a yellow card and not a direct red one. Barcelona were left in a position of weakness with one of their players expelled, but were able to hold on to the 3-1 scoreline.
