Sept 6 2019
- Gary Stonehouse
LEONARDO BONUCCI was branded “shameful” after a theatrical dive during Italy’s victory in Armenia last night.
The 32-year-old defender was blasted by opposition striker Aleksandre Karapetyan after the shocking incident during the Euro 2020 qualifier.
And the hotshot, who had opened the scoring for Armenia, blamed the experienced Juventus star for getting him sent off intentionally.
Karapetyan went up for an innocuous looking challenge with the centre-half during first half stoppage time in Yerevan.
But despite their appearing to be zero contact, Bonucci clutched his face as he writhed on the ground, leading to the referee issuing his foe with a second yellow card for a perceived elbow.
The scores were level at one-apiece at the time of the unsavoury incident, but Italy would go on to claim a 3-1 win as Andrea Bellotti sealed his double to add to Lorenzo Pellegrini’s strike.
However, Karapetyan, 31, appeared to be in no mood to forgive or forget afterwards.
And he used his Instagram story to share a snap of the aerial duel showing his elbow nowhere near Bonucci’s face.
He captioned the photo with: “I have big respect for what you have achieved in your football life, but that was shameful.”
It’s not the first time Bonucci has been caught out play-acting.
Back in February he did his best to convince the ref to chalk off Jose Gimenez's opener for Atletico against Juve in the Champions League.
The veteran pretended to be injured immediately after the Uruguayan broke the deadlock.
Feeling the slightest of grazes as the 24-year-old brushed past him in the box, the defender collapsed to the ground holding his face.
And as he laid sprawled across the pitch, he peeked through his fingers to see the resulting action as the loose ball fell to the feet of Gimenez – off the side of Bonucci – who duly dispatched past Wojciech Szczesny.