Cucurella Hands Referee His Dropped Red Card as Perisic Is Sent Off in Split

Spain won 2-1 in Split on Tuesday, but the clip travelling around football is not either goal. In the 79th minute, with the score level, Ivan Perisic was sent off for a second yellow card, referee Erik Lambrechts dropped the red card, and Marc Cucurella picked it up and handed it back to him. Croatia’s captain and coach both criticised Cucurella afterwards, and the home crowd booed his every remaining touch.

What exactly happened in the 79th minute in Split?

Perisic, who had given Croatia a 17th-minute lead, challenged Cucurella from behind as Spain attacked, Nogomania reports. Perisic was already booked, and Lambrechts decided the challenge earned a second yellow. Three Croatia players protested while Cucurella called for the booking, The Sun reports.

Amid the protests Lambrechts fumbled the red card onto the grass. Cucurella spotted it, picked it up and handed it back, and the referee then raised the same card to complete the dismissal. Fans online quickly labelled it a red card assist, and inside the Poljud Stadium the reaction was immediate: every later Cucurella touch drew whistles. It is the second Nations League week running in which a dismissal, rather than a goal, has owned the story, after Suriname’s red card in Guatemala became part of a far more serious racism case.

Did the sending-off actually change the game?

On Croatia’s account, it decided it. Perisic’s opener had put the hosts in front before substitute Mikel Merino equalised in the second half, Nogomania reports. Down to ten men for the last ten minutes, Croatia conceded again late, Merino completing his brace to send Spain into the Nations League quarter-finals.

Modric’s verdict was blunt: with eleven men, he said, Croatia would certainly not have lost, and he questioned the VAR’s role. That frustration with a review that did not rescue his side echoes Jesse Marsch’s attack on the red-card ruling that shaped a USA-Canada meeting, where the losing camp’s argument was also about process rather than the foul itself.

Why could VAR look at a second yellow this time?

Because the scope changed this season. A second yellow has traditionally been one of the decisions VAR cannot touch, which is why dismissals of this kind are usually final the moment the card rises. Sports of the Day reports that yellow-red decisions have been reviewable since the start of this season, that the VAR checked the Perisic incident, and that it saw no reason to intervene.

That distinction matters for how the anger should be aimed. Croatia’s complaint is not that nobody reviewed the call; it is that a review happened and still backed a contact that Sports of the Day describes as slight, with Perisic trying to avoid Cucurella in a running duel. The list of officials trusted with those calls is small, as our guide to the best football referees and how they are rated explains, and Lambrechts now owns one of the season’s most replayed decisions.

Is handing back the card actually against the rules?

No law names it, and that is the grey area at the centre of the row. Players who demand a booking, including by miming a card, can themselves be cautioned for unsporting behaviour. Cucurella did call for the second yellow, The Sun reports, but the gesture that went viral was returning the referee’s own dropped equipment, which no lawbook covers.

Cucurella’s own reading was simple: there was contact, the referee made the decision, and the card was clear. Bilic’s reading held two ideas at once, that Cucurella is a great player who defends his team with everything, and that he provokes. Both can be true, and the booing suggests Split settled on the second. Theatrics around officials are a recurring flashpoint in this Nations League window, from the Ireland-Israel tunnel allegation now under UEFA investigation to a farewell match in Argentina where a selfie attempt split fans. English football, meanwhile, closed a disciplinary case of its own this week: Southampton manager Tonda Eckert received a suspended ban in the spygate verdict.

Why does Cucurella keep collecting hostile crowds?

Germany got there first. At Euro 2024 a Musiala shot struck Cucurella’s arm in the area during Spain’s quarter-final win, no penalty was given, and German crowds have booed him since, Nogomania reports. He has always said he was not responsible for that decision.

Split is different in one respect: this time he was a participant in the moment, not a bystander to it. He won the foul, asked for the card, and then supplied it. That sequence is why a defender who, by his own joke, is running out of countries he can visit comfortably, has added Croatia to the list in a single night.

Friday brought the mirror image in England’s second tier, where a clean Soucek tackle outside the box was given as a penalty against West Ham with no VAR to correct it: Cucurella’s referee at least had video available to check the card, while the London Stadium decision stood on one view of a tackle the replays contradicted twice over.

Saturday brought the opposite route to a red card in Washington, where Athenea del Castillo was sent off after a VAR review showed her pulling a USWNT player’s hair: there the card arrived only once the screen had spoken. This week the screen took the card’s job entirely in Montevideo, where Uruguay’s referee replaced his cards with a phone-sized electronic device for Nacional’s cup win over Rentistas.