Juninho kicking the ball at Jimmy Nielsen in the 91st minute of last Wednesday's mid-week game against Sporting Kansas City was dumb. Nielsen, in classic Nielsen form, was about to take his sweet time on a late game goal kick, and Juninho took issue (as he noted after the game) as you'll see above, by knocking the ball toward the Sporting goalkeeper. It...wasn't smart and earned him a straight red for his troubles.
What Juninho didn't expect was that Nielsen would do his best Olympic diving impression after the ball makes contact with him and throw himself on the ground as if the Brazilian midfielder had just attempted to kill him. And so, yesterday, the league disciplinary committee tacked on an extra game to the suspension that already comes with a red card.
That means no Juninho Saturday against Toronto FC. And, really, it's got everything to do with Nielsen acting as if Juninho had pulled out a handgun and blew a hole in his shoulder, right there on the field.
Head Coach Mike Petke sums it up nicely...
"Juninho's 15 yard away and he toe-pokes the ball to a pro goalkeeper. It hits him in the face and he goes down like a rock. Do I think he should've got two? No, I thought he should've got one," said Petke. "But for him to go down like that, he fooled everybody. So I guess that's where the two games comes from."
Emphasis is from the New York Post's story, not my own.
For his attempted murder, Juninho will also be fined an unspecified amount of money, too.