So it eventually didn’t matter, as many of us have now seen, but Laurent Koscielny’s red card for France has to go down as the worst decision of the week. The player, and not the referee for once, should hang his head in shame as his actions could have resulted in a far more serious punishment.
Whilst being 2-0 down in the first leg of the World Cup play-off against Ukraine, Koscielny decided that he would confront Oleksander Kucher in the dying stages of injury time following a strong challenge by the Ukrainian. The head clash and then the slap from the Frenchman more than warranted the red card, but the suspension was not all.
He had then left his team needing to claw themselves back from 2-0 down in the second leg, a feat never achieved before, without him. The penalty he gave away in the same match was another silly decision, but he has made enough of them for Arsenal over the past few years.
Despite being a top-quality player, Koscielny will have to look at himself and think about his place in both club and country sides. Will any side win the Premier League with a defender that can be so clumsy and daft? Will any nation ever win the World Cup with that same kind of player?
This two-legged affair between France and Ukraine has been full of errors and contention. Firstly, the penalty was a silly foul by Koscielny, and then his red card was just as idiotic, just after Kucher could have seen himself been in hot water, however it seems as if it was a hard, but fair challenge.
Then, in the second leg, Kareem Benzema had a goal chalked off for offside, wrongly, before then scoring a goal from an offside position, which stood. It clearly wasn’t an affair for anyone to be covered in glory for their decision making.
But in the end, Koscielny won the prize, not for the slap, but for his disregard for his own team’s fortunes as he made the decision to become embroiled in a fracas so late into the first leg. Maybe he could do with a summer off after all and get down to his local anger-management classes, but we’d rather keep him away from Joey Barton, I’m sure.
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