The incident isn’t particularly memorable, it certainly doesn’t linger in the memory as long as Michael Essien’s piledriver that drew Chelsea level in the same game, but last week’s meeting of Chelsea vs Arsenal may have cast minds back to December 2006 when the two sides met at Stamford Bridge and Didier Drogba and Jens Lehmann got pantomime season off to an early start.
With the game in a second-half lull, Drogba got upset when he was denied a penalty and then took to the floor after a prod from Lehmann. The Ivorian rose to his feet quickly, gently barged Lehmann and, not to be outdone for theatrics, the German tumbled over. Referee Alan Wiley didn’t see the funny side and booked them both.
Nine years later and it seems the requirement for dramatics sadly hasn’t departed, with Gabriel Paulista assuming the role of Lehmann and filling Drogba’s shoes is Diego Costa, the rabid Brazilian striker whose biography is entitled The Art of War.
Costa loves battling with defenders both physically and mentally, spending matches wrapped in the constant search for his opponents’ weaknesses and exposing them anyway he can to try and gain an advantage.
Gabriel fell into Costa’s trap
Playing against Chelsea on Saturday Gabriel fell into the trap, reacting to Costa’s coming together with Laurent Koscielny. Both Brazilians were shown yellow cards but sensing his opportunity Costa tried to extract more from his adversary, continuing to fire verbal bullets over the shoulder of Gabriel until the Arsenal defender, according to referee Mike Dean, flicked out a boot.
Of course the details have been studied over forensically as Gabriel received a red card and set his team up for the eventual 2-0 defeat, the late sending off of Santi Cazorla compounding the misery for the Gunners. Gabriel would be blamed by his manager Arsene Wenger, “guilty for getting involved” he said, for retaliating but the Frenchman was at pains to point out Costa should have gone too.
Retrospective action has claimed as much as the striker was charged for violent conduct and banned for three matches, a verdict Chelsea say they are “disappointed with”. One can imagine Jose Mourinho secretly rubbing hands with glee as the FA have unwittingly given him a narrative with which to ramp siege mentality up to the megawatts.
‘Just as Chelsea are getting back to form’, he will say, ‘the authorities are trying to cut us down’. A return to January’s line of everybody is out to get us, when Costa was slapped with a 3-match ban for stamping on Liverpool’s Emre Can.
Punished for being a pain
But this is much different. Costa didn’t commit a single foul against Arsenal and it seems that here he is being punished for just being a pain. It is worth noting these two have met before, when Costa softly elbowed the defender when Atletico Madrid met Villarreal in February 2014, so the defender should have known better the depths of gamesmanship his opponent would be prepared to sink to. This was not an elbow but an obvious attempt to goad and provoke, the fault lies with Gabriel for falling into the trap.
It makes little sense for the FA to transfer Gabriel’s three-match suspension to Costa as it is difficult to see what the striker did that was deserving of it. The success of Arsenal’s appeal hinged on video evidence so why didn’t that same tape show the FA that Costa wasn’t doing anything violent or dangerous? The simple answer is it didn’t, so what doesn’t make sense is that the punishment tariff for harmless goading is the same as stamping on an opponents’ leg.
Baffling decision
Even more baffling is that the video evidence won the day on the basis that Paulista didn’t connect with his kick. So by that logic it’s okay to retaliate as long as you don’t connect? Throw a punch and miss you’ll be fine. As Mourinho, who didn’t want to dwell too much on the incident in his Friday press conference, said, it sets a dangerous precedent as indication that retaliation is now okay.
It is rather easy to imagine the FA having to deal with somebody like Costa, a striker who still bears the hallmarks of the streets of Brazil where he learned the game, operating right on the edge of the rules and pushing them to the very limits of acceptability.
It is anathema to the FA’s old boys’ club who like the game sanitised and free from any controversy so when these two cultures collide, all rationale and common-sense is tossed out of the window in panic and the default punishment of a three-match ban is handed out.
Punishment and self-reflection
The centre-half did in fact receive a ban, for an improper conduct charge relating to his failure to leave the pitch immediately, and a £10,000 fine for his role in the fracas. It means both players will be missing for this weekend’s action. Maybe Gabriel will use his time off to reflect on never lashing out again, while Costa may use his time, slightly longer of course, to curb his chicanery. We all know the answer to that, so the FA must be better prepared for future incidents.
There will always be players like Costa and Gabriel, being pushed right to the limits by the pressures of competition, so the authorities must solve the incoherent punishment tariff that currently binds them. How we could do with Alan Wiley.
Written by Adam Gray
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Wow!!!!!!!, “Costa didn’t commit a single foul against Arsenal”.When you take your blue tinted glasses off let me know please.
I am an Arsenal fan and I agree the FA were wrong to rescind the Gabriel red card as there was intent but you can’t say Costa did nothing wrong. He put his hands up to the face of another player and scratched Gabriel’s face. The right decision would have be to send them both off. Make no mistake Arsenal would rather have the points and the suspension. Chelsea came out of it ahead.
In your well informed minds are murder and attempted murder and common assault the same? Please revise your understanding. FA was right to rescind the red card
You are an idiot. The three game ban was 4 his slaps on koscielny
Are you, by any chance, deaf and blind and do you live in a cave and are you a Chelsea fan???
This is the biggest pile of garbage ever. You should not write a piece on something you know nothing about. He got the 3 game ban for violent conduct, swinging at his opponent’s face and MAKING contact. In a violent fashion, hence the suspension.
Delete this rubbish and save people from reading this nonsense.
You cldnt have said it better..this is rubbish.
Adam, did you see the rake marks on Gabriels neck? Did you forget to see Costa’s fingers and hands in Koscielny’s face? Those were much worst than an attemmted back kick at Costa. Bottom line, the referee has always cheated Arsenal, Mourinho knows our history with Mike Dean and took advantage knowing he had the ref on his side. Dean saw an attempted kick, while missing all of Costas violent actions leading to that harmless kick, and that is what the FA ruled on from video evidence.
“Costa didn’t commit a single foul against Arsenal”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Thats a good one ..top comedy blogging
Mike Dean claimed that he missed Costa’s violent actions and rather than admit that he is biased he admitted to incompetence or simply to being blind. For this Costa gets banned. It doesn’t set a bad precedence it corrects and injustice. Or, if you are so worried about referees being undermined just fire Dean.
“Costa didn’t commit a single foul. He was punished for being a pain”
Unbelievable! So, slapping your opponent in the face, chest-butting and kicking out (he did that to Chamberlain if you cared to watch the match) are not fouls. Yet, Gabriel was the one who deserved to be punished for retaliating with a missed kick?
Any honest man would agree that it should’ve been a straight red for Costa, when he handled Koscielny. It should’ve been 11 vs 10 for Arsenal, but instead became 10 vs 12.
I aint surprised by the decision to ban Gabriel.Any ref worth his salt shd have sent off Costa when he slammed into our French defender. How can the linesman not seen the incident.
I have been saying for ages. The FA only want Mu to win the epl.
MC were beaten thanks to an offside goal .The ref and linesman shd be reprimanded and demoted. Otherwise Arsenal and MC and the others can forget about winning the tile.
“Costa didn’t commit a single foul against Arsenal” - I stopped reading because you clearly didn’t watch the match.
Thanks for all the responses. This post itself is an injustice not only to Afc but football as a whole. By the way blogger, is rugby your favorite sport?
Thought i was only d only one baffled while reading d post n must admit i almost quited reading after d 1st paragraph but somehw i continued. Actually i understand that every man is entitled to his views but what i dont always understand when peeps(like d author of this post) have or make up daft opinions just for d purpose of opposing reality.i wont have a problem with it if he had admitted to being a chavs fan buh even an average thinking fan will understand that costa’s barbaric antics are not just allowed not only in soccer but d society in general
You are indirectly ref mike dean.
The moment I read ‘Costa did not do anything to warrant a red card’, I stopped reading your article. How naive are you? And which game where you watching? Dono which was more painful, this article or watching Chelsea play. Thank god you are not in charge of the FA!! or any football association for that matter!
Is David Gray blind or is he deaf? Are you writing on what you heard or what you saw? Hypocrites like you should not become cheap journalists as Mike Dean too shouldn’t be a referee. These skills need people with intergrity not you cheats. You blindly choose not to see Diego Costa straight red card incidents on Kosciency and Chamberlain that you can see all day long with naked eyes but you can inly see Gabriel attempted kick which is only visible on video replays. Please next time post your garbage in Mike Dean house or Chelsea website they might appreciate your lack of integrity . Cheats like you are killing our beautiful game of sports we don’t need you nor your garbage journalism.
l believe the writer is a mourinho apologist,a blinder to seeing the truth and shying away frim telling it.
The writer is indeed stating a fact that Costa did not commit a foul against arsenal , well the officials didnt see any. All the fouls were committed only for us in TV land to see. My question how can the assistant who is 50 yards away see the a heel flick in a group of players yet neither the referee or any of his assistants saw Costa slap kos in his face when it was only three players in the box. Question for thought.
if the FA did NOT take action against Costa it would be setting a bad precedent.your sense of right and wrong is warped
Nice post…I seriously love it. Even if the ref saw Costa’s scratch on Laurent’s face, it would have resulted to a yellow card. And for the chest bump, Laurent took advantage of it to take a tumble like he was hit by a shot gun. But frankly speaking, the punishment couldn’t have been worse than a second yellow…and that means Costa only gets to miss just one match. The committee of refs that sat to analyze the incident and decided to impose three match ban on Costa and rescind Gabriel’s red card clearly did that out of shear resentment for the outcome of the match. All these double standards exhibited by the FA are part of what goes on to affect the performance of English teams in Europe And the English media contributes immensely also. I was disappointed with all the names some so-called Pundits who had played the game were branding Costa. One called him a ‘Petulant baby’…some even went further to term him a ‘criminal’, and were all calling for retrospective actions. The FA are clearly influenced by the media and that’s not good for the game. Players who become pundits should learn to mind their language and respect those currently playing. Some of them were once bad asses on the pitch and have had their ups and downs. Costa doesn’t fight in Chelsea champions league matches which to me are more crucial…why’s that? Its obvious that the amount of fouls and roughing up permitted in the premier league is just too much and frustrating for players with short tempers like Costa. Even Ronaldo hates players winding him up and will involve in fights if he was still playing in the premier league.
This to me is the reason why we don’t see top flight players agree to come to the BPL, and those that come fail to excel because they spend more time in surgeries than in football matches. Hazard has reduced his dribbling rate, of which to me, the reason is because if he continues dribbling, he is surely gonna one day suffer a long term injury that would batter his beautiful career. I’m not saying all these because I’m a chelsea fan, but rather because I’d love to see Epl teams play beautiful football, and those that already play beautiful football like arsenal don’t surfer too many injuries and get the amount of foul calls, penalties they deserve and bookings their opponents deserve. This way, the league becomes a fertile ground for players who like to play with ball on their feet and not surfer an injury ridden career like Arjen Robben.
Diego Costa is not being punished for any incident involving Gabriel Paulista; he was charged for a violent conduct against Laurent Koscielny which the referee failed to see or punish him for during the game.