UEFA Champions League: Gennaro Gattuso Suspended For Five Games

Milan’s midfield was looking fairly ponderous as Tottenham soaked up pressure and hit them on the counterattack at the San Siro, and losing Gattuso for the return leg at White Hart Lane in two weeks certainly won’t help matters. With Tottenham favoured to advanced to the Champions League semi-finals, Gattuso could find himself facing a long UEFA suspension for next year’s group stages, with Milan still set to qualify for Europe’s top competition via their league position.

For all that they were childish, the captain’s antics seemed to fire up the rest of the team and with Pato on to start the second half they looked a much more dangerous side. Bizarrely, they got their best chances from set plays, Mario Yepes in particular forcing two fine saves from Huerelhio Gomes, who was more or less a spectator in the first half of the match. However, committing too many players forward in a desperate search for a goal is always a recipe for danger, especially when playing against someone with the speed of Aaron Lennon, and the winger blitzed up the length of the field and skipped past Yepes before setting up Crouch with the easiest of goals in the 80th minute.

The final whistle wasn’t the end of the action, unfortunately. Gattuso, who now faces a one-game suspension for picking up a yellow card, went over to shake hands with Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, then immediately walked up to Jordan, the coach he’d shoved earlier. Jordan might have expected an apology for the earlier altercation, but Milan’s captain wasn’t in the mood for contrition. Instead, appallingly, he was in a headbutting sort of mood.

They should also probably consider themselves very lucky not to be down to ten or even nine men. Just minutes after Mathieu Flamini escaped a straight red card offence with just a booking, the midfielder went straight through the back of Peter Crouch with no attempt at playing the ball. It should have been a second yellow, but instead the ref simply gave Tottenham a foul and told the furious Spurs players to get on with it. Gennaro Gattuso has also been walking a fine line after shoving coach Joe Jordan in the face, getting into a series of shoving matches with Crouch, and finally was cautioned for taking out Stephen Pienaar, who’s now been substituted for Nico Kranjcar. Gattuso’s booking will rule him out of the return leg at White Hart Lane, and the Italian isn’t very happy about that - perhaps he’d do better to play without being a 5’8” tower of burning rage in the future.

The anger has started to boil over now, as Gennaro Gattuso demonstrated with a shove on one of Tottenham’s coaches following a foul by Stephen Pienaar. In addition to the caution picked up by Flamini, Mario Yepes was also booked for blocking off Heurelio Gomes as the goalkeeper attempted to throw the ball out of the area. Yepes’ yellow was incurred only seconds after the centreback had forced yet another fine save from Gomes from another excellent header. Spurs could easily be behind by two goals here, but considering that they’ve been denied a penalty and their opponent should be a man down, they probably deserve a top-class goalkeeping performance.

We also have an update on Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati, who was withdrawn in the 18th minute due to a head injury. Abbiati has been confirmed to be suffering from concussion and has been taken to hospital for precautionary scans. He is, however, conscious and talking, according to one of the medics who treated him after he collapsed in the penalty box after a series of aerial challenges with Tottenham players. Abbiati was replaced by Marco Amelia, who didn’t have much to do until a long-range effort by Rafael van der Vaart forced him to tip over the bar in the 41st minute.

Seconds later, Spurs had surged forward and earned themselves a corner, only to see the ball travel right back down the length of the pitch to Ibrahimovic, who had a fairly credible penalty appeal instantly turned down by the referee. Upon further viewing, it did appear that the big Swede was fouled, but contact was made outside of the penalty box. Nothing was given, however, much to the distress of the home fans. At the moment, the game is incredibly open and it should only be a matter of time until the first goal is notched.

In fact, he looks as though Abbiati is in some trouble after clashing with Crouch several times (although there seemed to be minimal real contact). The med staff is on the field with a stretched as the Milan goalkeeper lies on the ground holding his head - now he’s being stretchered off the pitch to receive treatment, which means we have a substitution: Marco Amelia comes on in the 18th minute and takes the apparently concussed Abbiati’s place in goal.

AC Milan (4-3-1-2): Abbiati; Abate, Nesta, Yepes, Antonini; Gattuso, Thiago Silva, Flamini; Seedorf; Robinho, Ibrahimovic.

Subs: Amelia, Alexandre Pato, Papastathopoulos, Oddo, Jankulovski, Merkel, Legrottaglie.

For a Spurs supporter, however, it’s difficult to embrace current success with a heart full of past disappointments. Those disappointments, according to Cartilage Free Captain’s Kevin McCauley, are keeping one Spurs supporter from fully embracing the club’s new-found success. On the contrary, they’re causing panic.

And Kevin tell us who, exactly, is panicking.

Kevin McCauley, the manager of Cartilage Free Captain, has a full preview of today’s match, and as would be expected from a Spurs supporter, it’s laced with plenty of undue pessimism and caging. Still, the post has all the context you’ll need ahead of today’s first leg in Italy. You can see it, as well as the rest of SB Nation’s Spurs community content, at Cartilage Free Captain.