Cristiano Ronaldo is likely to escape further punishment from Uefa for his red card against Valencia and will therefore be available to face his old club Manchester United in the Champions League.
Ronaldo’s participation in both matches against United was thrown into doubt when he was sent off in Juventus’s 2-0 win over Valencia last night.
Felix Brych, the German referee, sent Ronaldo off after he appeared to try to pick up Jeison Murillo, the Valencia defender, by his hair when they tangled in the area.
The red card carries a one-match automatic ban, meaning Ronaldo will miss Juventus’s next group match against Young Boys on October 2. Uefa has the power to extend Ronaldo’s ban even further if it decrees that the player’s actions were violent or if he showed dissent. There was a chance that Ronaldo could therefore miss out on both matches against United, which are due to take place on October 23 and November 7, but The Times understands that the Portuguese will avoid a lengthier ban and will be available for both games.
Uefa’s Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body is expected to confirm as much when it meets a week today.
The news will be welcomed by Juventus, but not so much by United. Ronaldo has had a difficult start to life at the Italian club since his move from Real Madrid earlier this summer, but the 33-year-old remains one of the best players in the world. He spent six successful years at United before joining Real in 2009.
Juventus still won in Spain as Miralem Pjanic scored from the penalty spot either side of half-time. Massimiliano Allegri said that Ronaldo should not have been given a red card, and lamented that video technology has yet to be introduced into the Champions League, as it has been in Serie A.
“I’ll only say that in this sort of occasion VAR would help,” Allegri said. “It’s disappointing because now we’ll lose him for a few games and instead if there had been VAR it would have been seen that it wasn’t a sending-off offence.”
Elsewhere, Real Madrid managed to win easily without Ronaldo, easing to a 3-0 win over Roma. Isco, Gareth Bale and Mariano Diaz got the goals. Bale finished off an accurate pass by Luka Modric, and the goalkeeper Keylor Navas kept a clean sheet after being preferred to new signing Thibaut Courtois.
Also in Group G, CSKA Moscow trailed 2-0 at half-time, but a stoppage time penalty from Nikola Vlasic made it 2-2 at the Czech champions Viktoria Plzen.
In Group F, Hoffenheim made their Champions League debut in Ukraine. Playing at their adopted home city Kharkiv, Shakhtar Donetsk got a late leveler in a 2-2 draw.
In Group E, Renato Sanches scored Bayern Munich’s second goal in a 2-0 win after Robert Lewandowski got their early opener. Also in the group, Ajax marked their return after a four-year absence to join Madrid as the only home teams winning yesterday, also by 3-0.
In the Johan Cruyff Arena, Ajax triumphed over AEK Athens with the help of two goals from the Argentina defender Nicolás Tagliafico.
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