Events in Madrid have dominated La Liga after Cristiano Ronaldo’s flailing arm left Malaga’s Patrick Mtiliga with a broken nose and the Portuguese winger with his second dismissal in as many months.
It is certainly not Ronaldo’s first transgression. Most will remember his lunge at Andrew Cole in the Manchester derby back in 2004, while the 2007/08 campaign started with a straight red card for a headbutt on Portsmouth’s Richard Hughes. But does a career total of six red cards detract from an otherwise sublime footballer? Patrick Vieira (13 career reds), Zinedine Zidane (12) and Roy Keane (11) would all surely disagree. The offence itself would have caused few to raise such tenuous eyebrows, but after his dismissal against Almer
