The flipside of players trying to stimulate and win fouls is that that the referees turn a blind eye when they are genuinely hurt. Then, there are occasions where a player is scythed down in the intention of purely causing pain. The aforementioned factors came to light during Brazil's World Cup 2018 qualifier against Bolivia, which the five-time world champions won 5-0.
As Brazil were demolishing Bolivia, Barcelona fans' hearts would have fluttered after looking at visuals of one of their marauding front men, Neymar, sitting on the turf with a bloodied face. Just over the hour mark, Bolivian striker, Yasmani Duk lashed out an elbow on his opposite number's face. To add to Neymar's misery, Duk wasn't even handed a yellow card for the offense.
Initially, the foul did not look harmful but it was only after blood started gushing out from the corner of the right eye of Brazilian superstar that panic started to set in. Neymar received treatment and was substituted a while later.
The Selecao had five different scorers on the night with Neymar, Filipe Luis, Gabriel Jesus and Liverpool frontmen, Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firminho getting on the scoresheet.
