Barcelona star Vitor Roque has this evening provided an insight into his take on the headline-grabbing red card handed down to him last weekend.
Roque, of course, found himself front and centre in the spotlight in Barcelona’s most recent outing.
This came after the Brazilian went from hero to zero, in a matter of minutes.
After being introduced off the bench in a La Liga meeting with Alavés, the January arrival in Catalunya quickly found the net, making it two goals in two on the back of something of a slow start to life in Spain.
As proceedings in Vitoria entered the closing stages, however, Roque was shown a quick-fire pair of yellow cards, followed by an ensuing red.
The 2nd booking, in particular, was widely considered to have been a harsh one, with Barcelona, in turn, having launched a series of appeals across the week to date in an effort to have their young striker’s one-game ban overturned.
As much proved unsuccessful, however, with Roque, as a result, primed to sit out this weekend against Granada.
As alluded to above, on Friday, the Brazilian was therefore afforded an opportunity to provide his take on the situation, and whether justice was served.
Speaking in an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Roque first revealed that he is in agreement with those of the opinion that he was hard done by:
“I think the yellow card was unfair, at least the second one, and now I have to serve the suspension. This is the referee’s decision and the club has tried to appeal in every way, so I have no choice. At first I did not understand. It was a ball in which the defender came towards me with his foot in front, and when I saw him, I tried to turn my foot so as not to collide with him or get injured, but the player started screaming and the referee showed me a red card. I was confused.”
On the referee’s explanation for his decision, the 18-year-old added:
“I asked the referee to explain why he gave me a 2nd yellow card. He said, ‘it’s not like Brazil here’. He was talking about that, that this is not like Brazil, and I just had to respect the decision and walked off the pitch.”
Finally, Roque concluded that:
“I’m angry that I can’t be available against Granda after scoring 2 goals in 2 games in a row. Because I wanted to be on the pitch to help my teammates as I was helping them, but now I have to keep my head calm and keep working.”
Conor Laird | GSFN
