Brazilian footballer sent off for peeing in bottle on touchline
In the pantheon of bizarre red cards, Lucas Souza of Metropolitano in the Brazilian second tier may have put himself very near the top.
The 31-year-old striker was on the bench for the first leg of the Santa Catarina Championship Serie B semi-finals against Carlos Renaux, but only for 62 minutes as he got caught urinating into a bottle.
Footage showed referee Adriano Roberto de Souza marching over to the Metropolitano bench to brandish a red card and be met with angry protests by the home team.
Leading Brazilian outlet Globo claimed that fourth official Ruan Alessandro Kanitz spotted Souza using a bottle to relieve himself and alerted the match referee.
They also cite his match report which confirmed the surprise story.
De Souza wrote after the 1-1 draw: “I sent off the player directly after being informed by the fourth referee that Lucas de Souza Santos was urinating into a plastic bottle on his bench.
“After being sent off, he left the field normally.”
Souza only recently arrived at Metropolitano and has played just seven games without registering a goal or assist.
And he’ll now be missing for the return leg away at Carlos Renaux, where a win and victory in the final would grant access to the top tier state elite leagues.
Footballers having toilet mishaps during games is nothing new, but it’s not often that they result in sanctions, let alone those as severe as a red card.
In 2009, former Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was spotted urinating behind a goal while playing for Stuttgart in the Champions League and could well have been punished.
Luckily for him, the referee and his assistants failed to spot the infraction which occurred when he surprisingly jumped over an advertising hoarding and headed behind his own goal.
The shot stopper had to cut his break short as Romanian side Unirea Urziceni suddenly regained possession and attacked his goal, but Stuttgart managed to hold on for a 3-1 victory.
Speaking post-match, their director or sport, Horst Heldt, said: “I thought he handled it very expertly.
“It was a tricky situation. He could hardly run into the dressing room while play was going on.
“It reminded me of the Tour de France – sometimes there are simply no options.”
A more recent example occurred in 2020 when Eric Dier sprinted off the pitch while playing for Tottenham against Chelsea.
Dier suddenly shot down the tunnel with 15 minutes to play in the Carabao Cup fourth round tie with Spurs a goal down.
Jose Mourinho was furious with what he was witnessing and chased Dier down the tunnel as Chelsea almost made it 2-0.
However, Dier quickly reemerged and would go on to score in the shoot-out victory after Erik Lamela’s late equaliser.
The English defender was named Man of the Match, and hilariously posted a picture of his award on the toilet with the caption ‘The real M.O.M’.
Speaking post-game, he said: “He (Mourinho) wasn’t happy but there was nothing I could do about it really.
“Nature was calling! There was a chance when I wasn’t on the pitch but thankfully they didn’t score.”
Mourinho himself commented: “With Eric you can imagine what happened.
“For him to leave the pitch it was easy to imagine what happened.
“I knew it, I was just pushing him to come back as soon as possible, because no more changes, and one player less is the consequence of something not human that he did, which was to play two matches completely dehydrated, tired, no energy in the muscles.
“Of course he is not playing Thursday because I would definitely kill him.”
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