Within the pantheon of bizarre red cards, Lucas Souza of Metropolitano within the Brazilian second tier can have put himself very near the highest.
The 31-year-old striker was on the bench for the primary leg of the Santa Catarina Championship Serie B semi-finals against Carlos Renaux, but just for 62 minutes as he got caught urinating right into a bottle.
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Footage showed referee Adriano Roberto de Souza marching over to the Metropolitano bench to brandish a red card and be met with indignant protests by the house team.
Leading Brazilian outlet Globo claimed that fourth official Ruan Alessandro Kanitz spotted Souza using a bottle to alleviate himself and alerted the match referee.
In addition they cite his match report which confirmed the surprise story.
De Souza wrote after the 1-1 draw: “I sent off the player directly after being informed by the fourth referee that Lucas de Souza Santos was urinating right into a plastic bottle on his bench.
“After being sent off, he left the sphere normally.”
Souza only recently arrived at Metropolitano and has played just seven games without registering a goal or assist.
And he’ll now be missing for the return leg away at Carlos Renaux, where a win and victory in the ultimate would grant access to the highest tier state elite leagues.
Footballers having toilet mishaps during games is nothing latest, however it’s rarely that they lead to sanctions, let alone those as severe as a red card.
In 2009, former Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was spotted urinating behind a goal while playing for Stuttgart within the Champions League and will well have been punished.
Luckily for him, the referee and his assistants didn’t spot the infraction which occurred when he surprisingly jumped over an promoting hoarding and headed behind his own goal.
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The shot stopper needed to cut his break short as Romanian side Unirea Urziceni suddenly regained possession and attacked his goal, but Stuttgart managed to carry on for a 3-1 victory.
Speaking post-match, their director or sport, Horst Heldt, said: “I assumed he handled it very expertly.
“It was a tough situation. He could hardly run into the dressing room while play was happening.
“It jogged my memory of the Tour de France – sometimes there are simply no options.”
A more moderen example occurred in 2020 when Eric Dier sprinted off the pitch while playing for Tottenham against Chelsea.
Dier suddenly shot down the tunnel with quarter-hour to play within the Carabao Cup fourth round tie with Spurs a goal down.
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Jose Mourinho was furious with what he was witnessing and chased Dier down the tunnel as Chelsea almost made it 2-0.
Nonetheless, Dier quickly reemerged and would go on to attain within the shoot-out victory after Erik Lamela’s late equaliser.
The English defender was named Man of the Match, and hilariously posted an image of his award on the bathroom with the caption ‘The true M.O.M’.
Speaking post-game, he said: “He (Mourinho) wasn’t blissful but there was nothing I could do about it really.
“Nature was calling! There was a probability once I wasn’t on the pitch but thankfully they didn’t rating.”
Mourinho himself commented: “With Eric you’ll be able to imagine what happened.
“For him to go away the pitch it was easy to assume what happened.
“I knew it, I used to be just pushing him to come back back as soon as possible, because no more changes, and one player less is the consequence of something not human that he did, which was to play two matches completely dehydrated, drained, no energy within the muscles.
“After all he is just not playing Thursday because I’d definitely kill him.”