December 8 – Good try but not good enough. Real Madrid defender Dani Carvajal will miss the first leg of the Champions League last 16 after he was found by UEFA to have got himself deliberately booked for time-wasting in the last month’s 6-0 win at Apoel Nicosia.
Carjaval took over 20 seconds to restart play with a throw-in in stoppage time before the referee brandished a yellow card. Being his third caution in the competition it triggered an automatic one-match ban and meant he missed Wednesday’s final group-stage match with Borussia Dortmund, in effect a dead rubber.
Theoretically that would have allowed him to return for the knockout phase but UEFA has decided to impose a further one-match ban after charging him with “receiving a yellow card on purpose”.
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