BBC Sportsound pundit rages on radio over Medeiros red card incident in Rangers win v Braga
Rory Loy blasted Braga’s Iuri Medeiros after he was sent off for a second yellow card in extra-time against Rangers on Thursday night.
Rangers took a 3-2 aggregate lead before Medeiros, 27, clattered into Leon Balogun.
Braga’s forward was booked by the referee and was clearly unhappy, so squared up to Davide Massa and was instantly shown a second yellow and a red card.
Ex-Rangers striker Loy, who’s now a pundit for BBC Scotland, was furious with Medeiros’ show of dissent towards the Italian referee.
“It’s not an outrageous booking,” said Loy on BBC Sportsound, as quoted by BBC Sport. “It’s not like, ‘my god, that’s never a booking’, but his reaction is unacceptable. You can’t do that.”
Head’s gone
It was utterly needless.
Yes, it was probably a bit of a soft yellow card but it’s not really one you could argue with as he brought Balogun down without really making a solid attempt to win the ball.
Massa’s red card for Vitor Tormena in the first half was way more controversial with the referee sending the Braga man off and awarding a penalty at the same time.
Did Tormena really make a deliberate attempt to stop Kemar Roofe when he brought down the Gers forward?
That was harsh as the foul was caused by Roofe’s clever play of getting in front of the Braga defender and there was a case of double jeapoardy.
However, Rangers’ disallowed goal should have stood because there’s no way Borna Barisic deliberately handled the ball.
It’s swings and roundabouts but at the end of the day, the best team won.
Rangers were impressive throughout the 120 minutes of football on Thursday night and really deserve a shot at making the Europa League final.
In other Rangers news, this international player is likely to have played his final game for his club amid Ibrox speculation.