By Chris Wright
Having scored the opening goal of the game against Sydney FC in the 23rd minute, Brisbane Roar striker Besart Berisha had his afternoon ended incredibly prematurely just 17 minutes later when the Albanian international was shown a straight red card after a piece of utterly ridiculous simulation.
After understandably riling Sydney’s Sebastian Ryall by lunging wildly into a 50/50 tackle, Berisha was then clonked in the face by his own team-mate, Thomas Broich,while he was grounded.
Berisha, who has a bit of a rep for feigning and flopping down under, then proceeded to writhe and buck hysterically around on the floor like a stabbed salmon.
After allowing Berisha to finish his little am-dram histrionics display, the referee then marched over and sent the Roar forward off with a straight red card – presumably for the initial “challenge”, though we’d like to think that the terrible play-acting had something to do with it too…
Now, admittedly Berisha obviously sustained a couple of minor cuts to his face during the tangle, but they were at the hands – or kneecaps, to be precise – of a fella on his own team.
He was deliberately attempting to get an opponents punished and/or save his own skin to an opponent’s cost and got exactly what he deserved, even if we do say so ourselves!