ANTONIO RUDIGER has responded to claims he should have been hit with a ten-game ban.
The explosive claim was made after the Real Madrid defender appeared to intentionally throw a knee to the face of Getafe left-back Diego Rico while he was on the ground.
The teams met at the Bernabeu in La Liga two weeks ago, with Getafe going onto cause an upset and win the game 1-0.
Despite the severity of the challenge, no action was taken on the pitch by referee Alejandro Muniz Ruiz, while VAR also failed to intervene.
Rico reflected on the moment, telling Spanish outlet Deportes: “If it were the other way around, I would have gotten the same ten-game suspension or wouldn’t have played at all this season.
“I don’t know what VAR is for. I think it’s for these situations.
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“It was an assault. You can see he was going to hit me on purpose. If he’d caught me in a bad position, he could have left me lying on the grass.”
Rudiger yesterday responded, strongly denying any malicious intent, with the German insisting that the incident has been blown out of proportion.
The former Chelsea man, 33, said: “You see the images with slow motion, and of course it looks terrible. But in the action itself and also what the player said that it was almost that I killed him, I think he doesn’t need to exaggerate.
“If I had the intention to do that, he wouldn’t stand up.
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“I don’t justify it, but the way he spoke after the game is like I killed him. Sometimes pictures and VAR look horrible, but it was never my intention to do it on purpose.
“I like to be tough on the pitch and everything, but still I have boundaries. I am a human being.”
Rudiger was facing the press ahead of Real Madrid‘s round of 16 second leg against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium tonight.
Los Blancos are 3-0 up at the halfway point in the tie thanks to Fede Valverde’s brilliant hat-trick in Spain last week.
In defence, Rudiger was immense – marking Erling Haaland out of the game, while also making a crucial last ditch block to deny the Norwegian a goal at one point.
Nobody can question that the Germany international is a top class centre-back and leader on the pitch, but fans on social media have been quick to criticise him after his challenge re-surfaced following his comments yesterday.
One wrote: “I hate this guy’s style of play.”
Another added: “He’s nasty.”
A third fumed: “Truly as dirty as any footballer I’ve seen.”
And another claimed: “He doesn’t even look at the ball – it’s crazy.”
Real Madrid have lost nine games in all competitions this season, and in six of them Rudiger didn’t play.
His uncompromising style doesn’t go down well with everyone, but there’s no denying his underlying importance to both Real Madrid and Germany.