Maccabi Tel Aviv's Yoav Ziv was red-carded in a bizarre fashion when the player's boot flew into the assistant referee Christos Akrivos during Stoke City's Europa League win.
The match had already seen one red card when Stoke were reduced to 10 men following Cameron Jerome's second yellow card before half-time. Greek referee Anastassios Kakos ruled that he had caught Ziv with his arm, a decision which left Stoke City manager Tony Pulis incensed. The Stoke supporters also made their unhappiness clear, booing Ziv every time he touched the ball having felt his reaction to Jerome's contact had been overly dramatic. So it was to the great delight of the home crowd when Ziv was dismissed himself in comical fashion 10 minutes after the restart. Frustrated that no free-kick had been awarded when he was tackled by Shotton by the touchline, Ziv kicked out and managed to fire his boot - which had come loose in the challenge - flying into the assistant referee Christos Akrivos. His flamboyant apologies were to no avail and he received a straight red card. He said afterwards: "With the linesman, it was an accident, unluckily, it hit him, but it was an accident. It is only the second red card in my whole career."
Source: The Telegraph
Source: The Telegraph