Marc Guehi Avoids Red Card After Controversial Challenge on Gabri Veiga
Marc Guehi walked off at half-time in Porto with his shirt clean and his record clear. The same could not be said for Gabri Veiga.
The Manchester City defender left the Porto midfielder bloodied on the turf after a wild aerial challenge in their Champions League league-phase meeting in Portugal, yet escaped without so much as a booking from referee Szymon Marciniak. The decision lit up social media and set the tone for a bad-tempered night.
A flying elbow and a bloodied Veiga
Midway through the first half, Guehi rose to contest a high ball and led with his arm. As he climbed, his elbow crashed into Veiga, who went down instantly. The Porto midfielder came off clearly second best, lying on the pitch with blood on his face as medical staff rushed on.
The replays did nothing to calm the reaction. Many watching felt Guehi, 26, had overstepped the mark.
“Marc Guehi absolutely clattered Gabri Veiga,” one fan posted. Another went further: “Guehi has gotten away with murder there.” The phrase kept coming back as images of Veiga’s injury circulated: “Guehi getting away with murder. Never change Uefa.”
Others focused squarely on the sanction they felt should have followed. “Guehi is lucky there. That is a dangerous challenge,” read one comment. Another asked bluntly: “How is Guehi not getting a red card for this rash tackle?”
On the pitch, the outcome was very different. Marciniak allowed play to continue once Veiga, after a couple of minutes of treatment, managed to get back to his feet and carry on. No card. No free-kick upgrade. No VAR intervention that altered the original call.
Tempers flare on the way to the tunnel
The anger did not stay online. It spilled over as the half-time whistle went.
As players and staff from both sides made their way towards the tunnel, City and Porto figures clashed, exchanging shoves and words in a simmering confrontation that quickly escalated. Security personnel were forced to step in, pushing bodies apart at the mouth of the tunnel to stop the argument from turning into something uglier.
Inside the stadium, witnesses spoke of the tunnel “shaking” during the ruckus, a sign of just how many were involved and how heated the dispute had become.
Amazon Prime reporter Gabriel Clarke, watching from close quarters, linked the flashpoint directly back to the Guehi-Veiga collision.
“That anger triggered by the Veiga-Guehi incident, the pushing and the shoving, the bad-tempered behaviour, continued down the tunnel as the players came off for half-time,” he reported. “Security for both teams were involved in separating the backroom staff and players from both sides as they entered the mouth of the tunnel.”
The challenge had done more than draw blood. It had split opinion and poisoned the atmosphere.
Nevin backs Guehi – up to a point
Not everyone joined the chorus calling for a red card. Former Chelsea and Everton winger Pat Nevin offered a defender’s defence of Guehi’s movement, while still accepting that the incident sat on the edge.
On BBC duty, Nevin argued that the mechanics of jumping for a header made some contact almost inevitable.
“Where do you put your arm?” he asked. “If you’re going for the header and someone is lower you can’t make your arm disappear.”
He did, though, acknowledge the one case against the England international. “They could only make one argument that Marc Guehi is reckless,” Nevin said, before adding that, in his view, “this referee has got everything spot on so far.”
That line will not satisfy those who watched Veiga wiped out and expected a different colour card to emerge. But on a night when emotions ran hot and the tunnel itself reportedly trembled, Marciniak’s decision stood — and so did Guehi, right in the eye of the storm.
