Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos refused to take the blame for the injury to Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah’s injury in the Champions League final, which has put the Egyptian’s World Cup participation at risk.
Ramos and Salah tussled during the summit clash in Kiev two weeks ago before taking a tumble, after which the Egyptian seemed to have dislocated his shoulder. Salah was substituted immediately, even as Liverpool went on to lose the match.
Ramos was panned in the media and on social media for the tackle, but the Spaniard was bullish about the reactions. “Bloody hell, they’ve given this a lot of attention, the Salah thing,” he was quoted as saying by Spanish newspaper AS.
“I didn’t want to speak because everything is magnified. I see the play well, he grabs my arm first and I fell to the other side, the injury happened to the other arm and they said that I gave him a judo hold. After the goalkeeper said that I dazed him with a clash. I am only missing Firmino saying that he got a cold because a drop of my sweat landed on him,” he added.
The centre-back also stated that he had he had spoken with the Egyptian superstar and had inquired about his well-being, “I spoke with Salah through messages he was quite good. He could have played if he got an injection for the second half, I have done it sometimes but when Ramos does something like this, it sticks a little bit more. I don’t know if it’s because you’re at Madrid for so long and win for so long that people look at it a different way.”
Test results later also suggested that Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius had suffered a concussion after the Real Madrid superstar elbowed him during the final, which further fuelled sentiments against Ramos.
Minutes after Ramos’s elbow, Karius would commit an error, throwing the ball at Madrid forward Karim Benzema, only for it to ricochet and gift the 13-time-European champions the opening goal in a tight game.
Real Madrid would end up winning the Champions League final 3-1 in Kiev, as Karius would commit another blunder for Gareth Bale’s second, spilling a routine shot.
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