Touching the Ball Does Not Erase the Foul: What Marelli Said About Malen's Red Card

Sitting down to watch the match at night, my hand froze at one moment. The ball grazed the inside of his right foot, and then the foot rose well above the ankle—knee straight, and the speed never dropped. In 2026, when I commentated on the Dhaka derby from a rooftop in Rangpur for 37 viewers, my throat had seized at exactly such a second. That day I learned that touching the ball and not committing a foul are never the same thing. The crowd sees the first; the referee measures the second.

The match was Roma against Como—a Serie A contest where a historically big club meets a challenger in the middle of an investment surge. In these fixtures, speed and duels rise, and so does the rate of high-speed challenges. In exactly such a moment, Donyell Malen went in on Bruno Kaiki while trying to win back the ball. That phrase—"trying to win back the ball"—is the real clue. It means the challenge did not come from a set defensive position; it came from inside a run, at maximum body speed. The referee had no doubt, and VAR did not intervene.

On DAZN, Luca Marelli said it plainly and precisely. He said the red card was correct, because Malen really did go in badly—foot raised above the ankle, knee straight, at speed. Yes, he grazed the ball, with the inside of his right foot. In Marelli's words, the challenge was truly dangerous, and the decision was correct.

My memory of this scene is not new. In 2026, when stadiums went silent, I made an audio documentary about a match played before zero fans at Signal Iduna Park. Speaking with 17 supporters from six countries, I understood that football's real evidence lies in the sound of the ground—and part of that sound is the explanation of a decision.

This is where the crack between the ordinary viewer and the rulebook opens. Watching matches for years, I have understood one thing—the crowd reaches a verdict by seeing the ball being touched; the referee measures speed. Under IFAB Law 12, a tackle becomes "serious foul play" when it endangers an opponent's safety, or uses excessive force or brutality. On this scale, touching the ball first offers no protection—the offence is defined by the danger created, not by ball contact. Marelli's sentence is therefore not an opinion; it is a translation of the rule.

Break down the biomechanics once. Foot raised well above the ankle, knee straight—that is, locked—and the whole approach carried at speed. When these three align, the player's follow-through leaves his own control. An uncontrolled follow-through means foreseeable danger. And this is exactly why the rule was written to separate serious foul play from a merely careless or reckless tackle. Without bending the knee, body weight cannot be controlled; that uncontrolled weight travels into the opponent's ankle and shin.

One more thing cannot be skipped. The challenge came while "trying to win back the ball," that is, in a transition moment. When a team holding a high defensive line loses the ball, recovery runs carry maximum speed—this is the highest-risk context for this kind of foul. In modern football, where pressing has been dragged down into a physical contest, these scenes are no longer accidents; they are close to inevitable. The more speed rises, the less room intelligence gets—this is not about one match; it is a trend.

VAR's silence is also significant here. Under the protocol, VAR may intervene only for a "clear and obvious error." When the referee's decision is a valid application of the criteria, non-intervention is not an omission—it is the correct outcome. But how much of this reasoning reaches the fan? This is where my second objection rises.

Picture the referee's task in a big match. In front of him is one second; behind him are nine cameras, a crowd of analysts, and the verdict of millions. Under this pressure, many referees take the easy path—they decide by looking at the ball. The one who measures speed and body language is often in the minority. In Malen's case the referee took the majority path, and that is the lesson here.

Now to the real objection. This news reports the red card but not the result. At what minute the incident happened, what the scoreline was, where the game went after Roma went down to ten—none of this is present. Yet the meaning of a red card depends entirely on this context. A first-half red card and a last-minute red card are two entirely different events—different tactical pressure, different moral story. Without the minute, you do not know the weight of the card; you only know its existence.

Here the old lesson of watching football from my rooftop returns. I learned the 3-2 derby was never just a score; it was a rooftop chorus. I know there is a gap between what is shown on screen and what happens on the pitch. Who fills that gap? On DAZN an expert explained, and television viewers heard it—but the eight thousand people in the stadium? They only saw a player leave the pitch with his head down, without any explanation. The empty stadium taught me that the twelfth man is a sound. And today that sound is being taken away—the sound of hearing a decision. The referee gives no in-stadium explanation, so fans can only guess, never be told.

There is another subtle trap we often swallow. Marelli is a broadcast expert on DAZN; his agreement shapes opinion but carries no regulatory weight. The operative decision-maker is the referee and, later, the disciplinary panel. Confuse the two, and we start believing the expert's endorsement is the final word—when it is merely the first layer. And one more caution: the player-club pairing and the opponent's name in the report should not be taken as final truth before independent verification; in judging, it is safer to keep the line between fact and inference intact.

The disciplinary arithmetic matters too. In Italy, a straight red card usually brings a minimum one-match ban; with aggravating force, it can stretch to two or three. Curiously, in Italy an on-field decision is generally not appealable on factual grounds—appeals are limited to procedural or mistaken-identity questions. The card is served, not overturned. Yet such a decision is announced to fans without explanation. Transparency stands as a slogan, and the fan remains the ignored audience.

One more thing should not be missed. Clubs commonly impose internal fines on a player for a red card that changes a match's course. That is discipline on one side, and a small financial transfer on the other—from player to club. But even this arithmetic means nothing unless we know the minute of the card and how the result finished.

A red card is really three different things that we weld into a single headline. On the pitch, it is one second of physical danger. On the board, it is a few matches of accounting, and a wage the club keeps paying. And in people's minds, it is a story, often written without context. Touching the ball makes that story easy—"then it was not a foul at all"—yet the rule has said otherwise all along. If we want football's judgment to feel fair going forward, the minute and the result must be written beside the card, and the explanation of a decision must be heard by everyone in the stadium. Otherwise we will watch the same scene year after year, and repeat the same confusion.