Andres Iniesta’s Tribute to Dani Jarque

Nice touch from Spain’s goalscorer Andres Iniesta today, who celebrated his 116th minute World Cup winning strike by whipping off his jersey to reveal a handwritten message on his vest type thingy. The message read: “Dani Jarque siempre con nostros” (Dani Jarque always with us) in reference to the Esanyol player who passed away at the age of 26 after a heart attack in the summer of 2009.

Iniesta was inevitably booked for removing his shirt, which I’m sure he won’t worry about too much having won the World Cup and paid homage to a deceased friend/colleague, plus what’s one yellow card buried amongst the thousand others in this final? But this incident makes me think that maybe shirt removal bookings should be dependenet on quality of underlying t-shirt message, as in: tribute to deceased player after scoring in the World Cup final = you get a pass.