Sunday Jul 16 2006 11:50
England striker Wayne Rooney has once again said that he should not have been sent off in this month's World Cup quarter-final defeat to Portugal.
The 20-year-old Manchester United star saw red for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho but insists he didn't mean to injure the defender.
"I'll go to my grave and still maintain it was a complete accident," he told the Mail on Sunday.
"I hadn't intended to do it. I had my back to the player. I couldn't see him, or where I was putting my foot.
"If you think about it, if I'd done it deliberately, if it had been a definite stamp meant to harm him, he would still be in hospital to this day. But he was up on his feet in minutes, no worse for wear.
"I was aware that my foot had landed between his legs which, of course, is about the nastiest place to get hurt, but it was an accident.
"I couldn't believe that the ref, who was so near, hadn't realised that. Perhaps he was too near."
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