Witnessing Bayern Munich playing with 9 men is a truly rare sight to behold. That is exactly what happened, though after Luis Díaz was given a second yellow card for simulation, following Nicholas Jackson’s straight red card earlier in the match. Still, Díaz’s sending off was very controversial, as many believe that the combination of contact on the Colombian and immediate recovery following his fall indicate that he did not dive and earn a card for simulation.
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That group of people would eventually include the referee Christian Dingert himself, who changed his mind following the match after rewatching the footage. Unfortunately, at that point it was too late to take back the 20 minutes Bayern had to play without the former Porto player. This and other controversial decisions saw Bayern’s honorary president Uli Hoeneß take it upon himself to heavily criticize the refereeing team’s performance, saying “that is the worst performance of a refereeing team that I have ever experienced in a Bundesliga match.”
DFB referees’ spokesman Alex Feuerherdt then fired back and, as a final blow, nearly guaranteed that Díaz will still get a suspension for his red card.
“Maybe his opinion was influenced by the fact that the majority of the decisions went against FC Bayern. But we are by no means talking about scandalous errors here,” Feuerherdt explained, as captured by @iMiaSanMia. “The second yellow card was a factual decision by the referee. Such factual decisions are generally final, therefore, except in cases of serious errors such as mistaken identity, the suspension usually stands.”
There are always fancy ways to dress up situations to make one’s own argument seem stronger, but if even Dingert says he would not give the red card after he saw the footage of the incident, it is fairly hard to justify upholding Díaz’s ban. It sounds as if Feuerherdt is making and will continue to make an attempt to do so, though.