Maccabi Tel-Aviv defender Yoav Ziv earned himself a reputation for all the wrong reasons during Thursday night’s Europa League defeat at Stoke City, getting a red card for kicking his boot at a linesman.
Ziv had incensed the Britannia Stadium crowd in the first half after appearing to go down in a theatrical fashion following a challenge from Potters forward Cameron Jerome, with the Englishman then promptly sent off by referee Anastasios Kakos.
From then on, the defender’s every touch was jeered, before the player finally snapped ten minutes after half-time.
Aggrieved not to receive a foul for a challenge from Ryan Shotton, Ziv then swung his left foot and kicked his boot – which had been pulled off in the challenge – firmly at the assistant referee, hitting him on the hip.
After the game, Ziv admitted that the famously noisy Britannia crowd had got to him – but continued to protest his innocence over the Jerome red card and the boot kick.
He said: ‘[Jerome] punched my neck, I wasn’t cheating.
‘But maybe with the crowd and their players driving me crazy a little bit, I kicked my shoe and was unlucky it went on the official.
‘It was an accident. It is only the second red card of my career, it was just bad luck.’
Jerome, Shotton and Kenwyne Jones all scored to give Stoke a comfortable win and leave them top of Group E after three games.
