"Maybe he’s man enough to admit it!" Bayern star Josip Stanisic levels serious accusations against Real Madrid’s Antonio Rüdiger

Stanisic dribbled past Rüdiger and slipped the ball to Serge Gnabry in the centre. Instantly after the pass, however, the German centre-back rammed his elbow into Stanisic’s side and, as the Croatian lay writhing in pain, reportedly let fly with a stream of verbal abuse. On the very next action, Kylian Mbappé netted Real’s third to make it 3–2.

“He sees me coming and just charges straight into me. In the past, you’d simply let play continue and if you lost the ball, a free-kick would be awarded. Maybe the referee forgot that rule there, I don’t know,” said Stanisic, still visibly upset, in the mixed zone after the match, and also took Rüdiger to task for his behaviour following the hard challenge.

“What happened while I was on the ground, you can ask Toni about. In my view, that kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable,” fumed Stanisic, before adding: “Just one word was used—and that twice. You can ask him yourself what he said. Perhaps he’s man enough to admit it!”

When a reporter noted that Rüdiger had declined to comment after the match, Stanisic speculated that the 33-year-old might address it during international duty, adding: “I don’t want any bad blood and I’m not taking it personally. It happened, and for me the matter is closed. But behaviour like that is unacceptable. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing against each other and know each other or not.”

Rüdiger recently presented himself as a changed man during international duty, after several outbursts and a lengthy ban for an incident in last season’s cup final against FC Barcelona. He told the FAZ at the end of March, ahead of the friendlies against Ghana and Switzerland, that he accepts “serious and objective” criticism because “I know I’ve been involved in incidents that went well over the top”. He added that he no longer wants to be a source of unrest but rather aims to “provide stability and security”.

Discussions, he added, had reminded him that he sometimes failed to meet his responsibilities. 

Shortly after his clash with Rüdiger, the match was over for Stanisic: at half-time, manager Vincent Kompany replaced him with Alphonso Davies as a precaution. As Stanisic later acknowledged, he was relieved by the decision. 

"That was a precautionary measure because of the yellow card. We’ve seen it in our previous matches too – he wants to protect us in defence. Because the referees have lost a bit of their tact when it comes to big games. Even when there’s no foul or you believe you’ve done nothing wrong, you can still be shown a second yellow and an immediate red,” he explained, pointing to Eduardo Camavinga’s controversial dismissal, which Real Madrid players were still fuming about long after the final whistle and saw as decisive to the match. “I don’t think the referee knew he’d already shown Camavinga a yellow card. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done it,” Stanisic added.

Ironically, Bayern’s own much-discussed incident during the match still had bitter consequences. Kompany became so agitated about the lack of a foul whistle following Rüdiger’s tackle on the German-Croatian that referee Vincic showed him his third yellow card of the current competition. The Belgian will now miss Bayern’s semi-final first leg at Paris Saint-Germain. Even sporting director Max Eberl was taken aback. “Is that so?” he asked on DAZN. “We said: ‘Great, no players are suspended’ – and now the manager is suspended? For goodness’ sake!”