Ribery in unwanted company

Franck Ribery joins the ranks of inconsolables who miss out on the big occasion, writes Richard Jolly.

Roberto Rosetti shows Bayern Munich's Franck Ribery a red card during the semi-final first-leg against Lyon in April. Uefa banned the French international for three games, ruling him out of tonight's Show more

It was "absolutely wrong," according to Bayern Munich. A trio of heavyweights at the Allianz Arena provided support. "Unfortunate," said Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the chairman. "Harsh," insisted Louis van Gaal, the manager. Christian Nerlinger, the director of football, pronounced himself "shocked". But the red-card decision of Roberto Rosetti, the match referee, was upheld first by Uefa and then by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Franck Ribery, they deemed it, was rightly dismissed against Lyon in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals. More significantly, despite Bayern's appeals, a three-match ban was deemed the appropriate sanction for his tackle on Lyon's Lisandro Lopez.

Excellent news, perhaps, for Hamit Altintop, his likely deputy in tonight's Champions League final. Ribery, says Rummenigge, is "sad and disappointed." It may be scant consolation, but he is also in good company. Inter Milan's Thiago Motta is also banned after his sending-off in Barcelona. Eric Abidal, Daniel Alves and Darren Fletcher were all suspended for last season's Champions League final. Their predecessors include Pavel Nedved, Paul Scholes and Roy Keane.

There is the core of an outstanding team there, players barred from what would have been the biggest game of their career. Thus far, only Scholes has had the chance to play in another final. World Cups also contain a cast list of the unfortunate. In each of the last five tournaments, at least one top footballer has been ineligible for the showpiece occasion: Claudio Caniggia in 1990, Leonardo and the luckless Alessandro Costacurta four years later, Laurent Blanc in France in 1998, Michael Ballack four years after that and, most recently, Louis Saha.

It is a sorry list, both for the players themselves and the authorities. Several were victims of an injustice that the game's governing bodies were too inflexible, too stubborn or too heartless to correct. Blanc, among the finest defenders France has produced, missed a World Cup final in Paris principally because Slaven Bilic, the Croatia defender, feigned injury; similar histrionics from Jurgen Klinsmann ruled Costacurta out of the 1994 Champions League final; Fletcher was deprived of his place last year despite making a legitimate tackle when he was dismissed for a challenge on Cesc Fabregas.

Others were unlucky in other respects. Keane, for Manchester United in 1999, Germany's Ballack in 2002 and Nedved, at Juventus the following year, were comparable figures: driving forces in midfield, players who galvanised their teammates. In each instance, the booking may have been justified. The look on Nedved's face when he fouled Real Madrid's Steve McManaman indicated he knew as much. Where Keane and Ballack distinguished themselves was in propelling their sides into a final they would miss.

In Managing My Life, Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, recalled: "The moment he [Keane] was booked and out of the final, he seemed to redouble his efforts to get the team there. It was the most the emphatic display of selflessness I have ever seen on a football field." It was emulated by Ballack. Having sacrificed himself by bringing down Lee Chun-Soo to earn the costly caution but spare his side a goal, the German then scored the winning goal.

"A tactical foul," in the words of his manager, Rudi Voller, the difference between crime and punishment suggested there should be an amnesty for yellow cards after the semi-final stages. But there was not always a reluctance to revoke refereeing decisions. Garrincha, the outstanding player of the 1962 World Cup, received a red card in the semi-final for kneeing an opponent in the backside "more as a joke than in retaliation", according to the Brazilian's biographer Ruy Castro. Then, however, "Fifa's disciplinary committee judged cases with one eye on politics and they were not unsympathetic to Brazil.

"Without Garrincha, Brazil were in danger of losing the final to Czechoslovakia, and in 1962 few people wanted to see a socialist country with the World Cup." Times have changed. Even politics could not provide a reprieve for players such as Ribery now. [e-mail]