The Red Card That Started the Argument

Stamford Bridge, 22 February 2006, the 37th minute of a goalless Champions League round-of-16 first leg. Messi, eighteen and in his first full season, had spent half an hour running at Chelsea's left-back Asier Del Horno; one earlier challenge had torn his shorts. As Messi got past Arjen Robben near the touchline, Del Horno charged into him and Messi went down. Terje Hauge showed a straight red card and classified the challenge as violent conduct.

Chelsea played the remaining hour with ten men. Thiago Motta's own goal gave them the lead in the 59th minute, John Terry's own goal levelled it in the 71st and Samuel Eto'o scored the winner in the 80th. Six days later UEFA's disciplinary body kept the dismissal but reclassified it as rough play using excessive force, cutting the ban from three matches to one. The second leg finished 1–1 and Barcelona went through 3–2.

The prosecution's case is Mourinho's: 'Can Messi be suspended for acting? Barcelona is a cultural city with many great theatres and this boy has learned very well.' On this reading, Del Horno's challenge was the ordinary, clumsy foul of a full-back beaten for pace; Messi's fall, spinning and clutching, turned it into a red card; and Hauge, twenty yards away, reacted to the reaction. UEFA's own finding that the challenge was 'without intention to hit' is quoted as proof that the violent-conduct red card was wrong on the night, even if the governing body chose to keep a sanction.

The consequence is the second half of the charge. A first leg that Chelsea had shaped as a physical stalemate became an hour against ten men; Barcelona scored twice in that hour, and a tie between the two best sides in the competition was decided by numbers rather than by football. Everything critics later called UEFAlona, they argue, began with a referee at Stamford Bridge deciding that Messi's fall told him what he needed to know.

UEFA reviewed the challenge with the benefit of replays and the club's submission, and it did not overturn the red card. It found that Del Horno 'used excessive force', which is a sending-off offence under serious foul play whether or not the referee's original label of violent conduct was right. Reclassifying an offence is not the same as clearing a player; the ban was reduced, the dismissal stood. Messi's leg, as Puyol pointed out, carried the mark.

The defence also notes what the 'theatre' accusation asks a jury to believe: that a teenager in his first Champions League knockout tie, running at a defender who had already fouled him, was play-acting rather than being fouled by a player who had lost patience. Mourinho's line was memorable. It was not an argument about the law.

Law 12 in 2005/06 listed serious foul play and violent conduct as separate sending-off offences. Serious foul play was a tackle or challenge for the ball that used excessive force or endangered an opponent; violent conduct was excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball. Both carried a red card; the distinction determined the length of the suspension under UEFA's regulations, which is why Chelsea appealed the classification rather than the card. There was no video review of any kind.

Chelsea played an hour with ten men and lost the first leg 2–1 at home; they drew the second 1–1 and went out 3–2 on aggregate. Del Horno missed the return through suspension. Barcelona won the 2006 Champions League final against Arsenal three months later. Whether the challenge at Stamford Bridge merited a red card, and whether Messi's fall changed what the referee saw, is the question the jury votes on. The replay picks up at 0–0 after the card, as Chelsea with ten men.