Los Blancos will take a 2-1 advantage into the second leg at the Bernabeu, but their club captain will play no part after his yellow card ruled him out with a suspension.
As noted by the reporters, he conceded after the game that he had intentionally picked up the booking in order to miss the second leg, and not the first leg of the quarter-finals, should Real Madrid go through.
However, he later backtracked on that statement on Twitter and insisted that he didn’t pick up the caution on purpose and was disappointed to be sitting out and watching on from the sidelines, amid talk of a risk of being hit with a ban.
As per the footage below though, it allegedly shows the Spaniard gesturing to the Real Madrid bench asking if he should pick up a yellow card, before minutes later fouling Kasper Dolberg which led to the referee putting his name into the book.
On one hand, it could be said that this is against the ethics of the game and isn’t fair play. However, you really could argue that it’s just clever from Real Madrid, provided that they advance.
Either way, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do to admit it after the game which has arguably now led to this level of scrutiny.
Heres the footage(Disclaimer its not in English )
