‘They tried to ruin my career’ – Manchester United striker expresses anger
Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund is unhappy with the reckless challenges he received from San Marino players who were intent on hurting him during Tuesday’s European Championship qualifier.
The Dane opened the scoring in a narrow 2-1 win over the European minnows, but was on the receiving end of a reckless challenge from behind in the 87th minute.
Denmark captain Simon Kjaer compared the incident to the one that saw Neymar suffer a fractured back in the 2014 World Cup, having also overheard San Marino players plotting to injure his teammate in Italian.
Hojlund, who also speaks Italian from his time at Atalanta also overheard their plans to hurt him and was not happy with their actions.
“I understand Italian, and I could hear that some of them were running around and saying nasty things to me. They were pushing and shoving, and they were grabbing onto me aggressively,” Hojlund said, Bold report.
“When we scored, I showed them the flag [made a shush gesture], apparently they couldn’t handle that, so they started pushing and engaging in such things.
“I find it incredibly disrespectful that they were hitting and grabbing, especially that guy over there [referring to Tosi, also in the mixed zone], he began pulling me and holding onto me excessively.
“It was 100 percent them who started it, and then the game just escalated. They ended up taking it to the next level since they had nothing to lose. They knew they might as well try to ruin someone else’s career.
“I feel they did that with me. Especially the last duel had nothing to do with football. It deserved a straight red card. The referee had no control over the match.”