In today’s match against Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester City star Raheem Sterling did something incredibly embarrassing when he blew a very good scoring opportunity by tripping over his own feet. Luckily for him, the referee followed that blunder with an even more monumental failure of his own when he awarded Sterling a penalty for the self-inflicted fall.
This is truly one of the worst refereeing decisions ever:
Pep “We realised Raheem Sterling’s incident wasn't a penalty. Raheem could have told the referee he wasn’t fouled. We don't like to score in that situation. You know VAR and what it is — the referee must be helped because they don't want to make mistakes” pic.twitter.com/hFnpDGEobZ
— The Pep (@GuardiolaTweets) November 7, 2018
Let’s be clear: this was not a dive. Sterling couldn’t have intentionally meant to pass on such a good scoring opportunity by looking for a penalty there instead of a shot.
Even though he’s a great and graceful player, he has a history of turning into a klutz the moment he winds up for a shot. And not only did Sterling almost certainly fall down on accident, but after falling he didn’t even motion for the ref to call a penalty the way many players do when looking for a bailout after they’d boned a scoring chance.
Sterling is innocent of anything other than clumsiness, and blame for this one rests squarely on the official. The weight of the shame that must be heaped on the ref’s shoulders right now should be enough to sink him right through the pitch surface.
But in one of the videos released during training Raheem Sterling did a similar thing which has raised eyebrows.
TAKE A LOOK:
Raheem Sterling training for that penalty decision. 😂pic.twitter.com/wsuyAjDTZc
— Kwesé Sports (@kwesesports) November 8, 2018
DO YOU THINK RAHEEM STERLING IS A FOOTBALL FRAUD?