Port Elizabeth, June 18 (DPA) German striker Miroslav Klose said Friday he is ‘in mourning’ after he picked up a red card that forced his team to play most of the game against Serbia with 10 men, losing 0-1.
‘I’m in mourning, I only wanted to help the team,’ he said. ‘I tried to play the ball. It wasn’t as though they were bad fouls.’
Klose was told by coach Joachim Loew to be aggressive as Germany tried to defend against Serbia from the front. But the 33-year-old, who in the past has earned a reputation for occasionally being over-committed, twice brought down Serb midfielders unnecessarily.
‘I think the ref should have spoken to me and told me to calm down,’ Klose said, but he shouldn’t have given me the second yellow. Football is a contact sport and you have to differentiate between a bad foul and this one.’
Team-mate Bastian Schweinsteiger agreed that the punishment was too severe for the offence, and blamed the Spanish referee, Alberto Undiano, who flashed nine yellow cards.
‘If you look at all of the yellow cards, it’s a joke. Every game should have a red card then,’ said Schweinsteiger. ‘It’s ludicrous.’
Serbia central defender Neven Subotic backed up the assertion. ‘I think the referee gave them out too easily,’ he said. ‘There were many fouls that were not yellow-worthy. That he got a second yellow for that is not normal. I’m not used to punishing such harmless fouls with yellow.’
