Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said Cristiano Ronaldo was wrong to blame him for the red card he suffered as Portugal fell to a World Cup qualifying defeat on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner exchanged words with Hallgrimsson after being sent off during Portugal’s 2-0 defeat in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo said before the game the Ireland coach had tried to put pressure on the referee by telling the officials not to be influenced by the superstar striker.<\/p>\n
With his team trailing by two goals in the second half, the 40-year-old was frustrated and elbowed Dara O’Shea in the back as the Ireland player marked him in the box.<\/p>\n
“He complimented me with putting pressure on the referee but listen, it had nothing to do with me, it was his action on the pitch that cost him a red card,” Hallgrimsson told reporters.<\/p>\n
“It had nothing to do with me unless I got into his head.”<\/p>\n
He added: “This was just a moment of a little silliness for him I would say.”<\/p>\n
Ronaldo could potentially miss the start of the World Cup if Portugal qualify, depending on how long his ban is.<\/p>\n
After his first red card while playing for his country Ronaldo will not be available for Sunday’s match against Armenia, where Portugal aim to seal passage to next summer’s tournament.<\/p>\n
“It’s difficult for a player like Cristiano to be in the penalty area,” said Portugal coach Roberto Martinez.<\/p>\n
“He had constant contact with the defenders, who were grabbing him. There was no violence — he tried to push them away.”<\/p>\n
bur-rbs\/iwd<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ireland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said Cristiano Ronaldo was wrong to blame him for the red card he suffered as Portugal fell to a World Cup qualifying defeat on Thursday. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner exchanged words with Hallgrimsson after being sent off during Portugal’s 2-0 defeat in Dublin. Ronaldo said before the game the Ireland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18013,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18010\/revisions\/18013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}