Juninho and Cris Should Learn to Shut Up

By: Laurie | December 12th, 2008

Note to Olympique Lyonnais players Juninho and Cris:

If you’re gonna break the rules, at least learn to keep your mouths shut.

The two Brazilians got fined 10000 and 15000 Euros, respectively, for getting intentionally booked in the Champions League match against Fiorentina. The bookings gave each of them a third Champions League yellow, meaning they were suspended for the final group match against Bayern Munich.

The fouls both occurred when it had become pretty clear that Lyon was going to win the match, qualifying the club for the knockout stage. Since Bayern also qualified, the only question to be decided in the final match was which club would go top of the group.

Juninho and Cris apparently decided that it was better to be suspended for a relatively meaningless match than to risk getting booked against Bayern and miss a game in the knockouts. So that’s what they did.

I didn’t catch Cris’s foul, but it happened in the 90th minute — enough to make any governing body go Hmmm. And Juninho’s foul was pretty egregious. My memory is saying he slashed somebody down at the Achilles tendon level when play was stopped. Also definitely iffy enough to draw the attention of the authorities afterwards.

But it might have ended there if they’d just kept their mouths shut. I mean, fouls happen all the time, right? But no.

The two Brazilians had said after the match in Italy to have worked it that a third yellow card would purge a suspension meaning they started again at zero for next year’s last 16 knockout stage, knowing Lyon had already qualified.

Sambafoot.com claims that Cris’s fine was more than Juninho’s because he was the one who bragged about it, reportedly saying:

“It’s true, with Juni, we said before the match that it wouldn’t be bad to get a card and be suspended for the next match.”

More proof, if we need it, that you don’t need brains to be a footballer.

Neither player plans to appeal the fines, possibly because they seem to have escaped the harsher punishment: a one-match ban for unsportsmanlike behavior.

And wouldn’t that have been ironic?

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