Brazil beat Chile 1-0 in a London friendly on Sunday, but Chile midfielder Gary Medel made the most of his opportunity to use Neymar’s leg as a step stool. After the pair went down in a tangle, Medel stood on Neymar as he got up. The referee didn’t see it, however, allowing the Chilean to escape punishment.
After the match, Neymar gave himself a new nickname. From Goal.com:
“This wasn’t a game of football,” he said. “It’s meant to be football not UFC. The referee is there to stop these things from happening, but there were four referees and none of them saw anything!
“It seems we have to suffer. I am a sufferer!”
A Barcelona player suffering?! Somewhere in Qatar, Xavi’s suffering sense was tingling.
Medel, meanwhile, was determined to be as much of a dick about the matter as possible. “Tackles are normal in play. Some do theater and others continue playing…a shame that not everyone sees it,” he tweeted, accompanied by a photo conveniently cropped to only show Neymar kicking out at Medel’s knee as Medel stands on his leg.
Los roces son normales en el juego. Algunos hacen teatro y otros seguimos jugando…lastima que no todos lo vean. pic.twitter.com/Us2Tf7OdF8
— Gary Medel (@MedelPitbull) March 29, 2015
This has been the Dirty Tackle of the Day: a chronicling of unfortunate events.
Classy move there, Gary. Wow.
It’s just as classy for Neymar to roll around like his leg is broken. I tore my achilles 6 months ago and didn’t roll like that.
Also you can tell a real injury from the fake one, he did no such theatrics when he got the knee to the back at the world cup.
Saw the match, the picture makes it look a lot worse than it was. By the way Neymar yelled you would’ve thought someone stabbed him in the face. Still unnecesary move by Medel.