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22nd May 2016

Franck Ribery almost touches brain with revolting eye gouge in German Cup final

What was he thinking?

Darragh Murphy

Franck Ribery is a devoted student of the Mousa Dembele school of ‘How to deal with scuffles.’

We’ve gone from the Roy Keane days of punching, to the forehead-to-forehead posturing of the early noughties and now we’re here.

2016 seems to be the year of the eye gouge though as Franck Ribery has followed the example set by Dembele in the match fight between Spurs and Chelsea earlier this month.

In the first half of Saturday’s German Cup final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, Ribery got a bit hot under the collar and took umbrage with some contact from Dortmund midfielder Gonzalo Castro.

Ribery fronted up to the German international and dug his ring finger into Castro’s right left eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNTL1Ee3OFA

The force with which Ribery jams his finger into his opponent’s eyeball actually makes for some distressing viewing and a deservedly lengthy ban can be expected.