Barbarouses apologises for red card

Kosta Barbarouses apologised to his team-mates after spending just nine minutes on the pitch as the All Whites lost to Costa Rica in their World Cup playoff in Doha.

The veteran forward was brought off the bench on the hour mark by coach Danny Hay but was back in the dressing room less than 10 minutes later after being sent off.

Barbarouses was originally shown a yellow card for a rash tackle which connected with Costa Rican defender Francisco Calvo’s ankle in the 69th minute at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.

But after being instructed to look at replays by his video assistant, referee Mohammed Abdulla Hassan Mohamed upgraded it to a red.

Barbarouses was the first All

White sent off in a match for almost nine years, since Ben Sigmund was given his marching orders for stomping on an opponent during a friendly against the United Arab Emirates in 2013.

The day after the match, Hay said the 32-year-old forward had ‘‘apologised to the players on multiple occasions’’.

‘‘You could look at it either way, but I feel for Kosta. It happens in football sometimes. You mistime the challenge and when you slow things down on VAR and you are looking, you can find whatever you want to look for.

‘‘If you are looking for something specific, you can 100% find it, like they did with the disallowed goal with Matt Garbett.’’

Barbarouses’ dismissal left the All Whites with 10 men as they continued to chase an equaliser, having fallen behind inside three minutes, when Joel Campbell scored through Costa Rica.

Hay was without two attacking options in the form of Callum Mccowatt and Marco Rojas.

He said they were: ‘‘just not well, just ill. We couldn’t include them because they were under the weather’’.