Half thought about it? He did jump into a tackle 2 footed and had Meireles not bottled it, Rafael could have been in trouble.
It seemed more of a stupid tackle than a malicious one though.
I have to say, it looked bad, but it wasn't, if Raul hadn't jumped out the way like a pansy, nothing at all would have happened.
It looks like he jumped, but replay you see he basically gets about 3 inches off the ground, also, the feet aren't right together, not to go on about Gerrard, trying to think of a tackle where basically both feet come down right next to each other. Rafael lands with one foot, and puts his foot through the ball with the other, in real time I thought "oooohhhhh, thats coulda been a red" , on replay, not even close.
However, a ref only gets one look(retarded as that situation is) so should he have gone as the tackle did look bad at first glance. Dunno, the replay from behind Raul, which is probably where the ref was looking from is where it barely looks like anything.
AS for Rooney shouting f-ing whatever, seriously, are we going to be that petty and pretend it doesn't happen.
Every single game, hmm, lets ball park it, in the last DECADE has shown almost every player yell swear words at the ref, get over it.
Swear words aren't on their own, bad, they are common language as much as people pretend or don't want them to be. Does it matter if Rooney calls him a bleepity bleeping bleep, or a gosh darn idiot. No, if he gets in his face, if he stays on the pitch having been given a red card, if he pushes/shoves the ref, punches him in the balls or fails to do as the ref says, thats disrespect.
Just about every player in the league swears at the ref all game long, half you see on camera, half not.
Lets not forget, he got a yellow for complaining, he shouldn't have got a red for it, wheres the issue?
Rafael meh, much like the Babel thing its much ado about nothing. He shouted at the ref over a poor decision, he didn't hold up the game longer by staying on the field, many players have taken a lot longer to go off but weren't in the ref's face. His was a little over the top, extra game ban, be done with it.
Babel's fine was a joke, even more so because the FA again gave a fine a EPL player wouldn't even notice, pocket change.
