Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron became the first player issued with a red card at the World Cup for covering his mouth, getting sent off during a confrontation late in the first half against Turkey on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The infraction came during first-half stoppage time in the Group D match when Almiron and Mert Mulder exchanged words following a foul near midfield. Almiron covered his mouth while saying something to Mulder, who immediately appealed to referee Ivan Barton for punishment.<\/p>\n
Barton went to video review and quickly ruled that Almiron would be given a red card and ejected under a new rule put in place for this year’s World Cup.<\/p>\n
“According to the law, if you cover your mouth you\u2019re sent off. Red card,” coach Gustavo Alfaro said. “There\u2019s nothing I can do about that. Unfortunately, we can\u2019t issue a new opinion on this.”<\/p>\n
Paraguay led 1-0 at the time and held on for the win despite playing a man down for the entire second half.<\/p>\n
Alfaro said he tried to cheer Almiron up after the game, telling him his absence brought out the “fighting spirit” of the team.<\/p>\n
“He apologized to the players for his mistake,” Alfaro said. “He knew about the situation he had left his teammates in with his actions. … It happened and it happened.”<\/p>\n
FIFA president Gianni Infantino pushed for the new rule after Benfica\u2019s Gianluca Prestianni tried to hide verbal insults toward Real Madrid’s Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior in a Champions League game.<\/p>\n
Alfaro said the team was well aware of the rule even if it might be too harsh.<\/p>\n
“I fear we are too strict and football loses its essence,” Alfaro said. “In football, there\u2019s frictions, fights, clashes.”<\/p>\n
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The red card means Almiron will miss the final group stage match against Australia with second place in Group D on the line. FIFA could choose to lengthen a suspension to sideline Almiron for a knockout round match.<\/p>\n
“I hope the penalty is he misses as few matches as possible,” Alfaro said. “He was very sorry and he was heavily affected.”<\/p>\n
This is the second time in two games at the World Cup that Almiron was carded under a new rule in place this year. He got a yellow card in the opening match against the United States after video review overturned a yellow card issued to Tim Ream and gave it to Almiron instead for diving.<\/p>\n
Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron became the first player issued with a red card at the World Cup for covering his mouth, getting sent off during a confrontation late in the first half against Turkey on Friday night. The infraction came during first-half stoppage time in the Group D match when Almiron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}