Hamburg’s Gideon Jung suspended for foul on Kingsley Coman

The DFB Sports Tribunal has decided to crack down hard on Hamburg’s Gideon Jung for his red-card foul on Kingsley Coman with an additional two-match suspension.

With Coman streaking, with the ball at his feet, down right flank, Jung came in from behind and made a dangerously reckless challenge that earned him a straight red card from the referee.

This could have ended much worse for the young French winger. Thankfully, his ankle or foot wasn't seriously injured and after some writhing around in pain, he assuaged Bayern's fears by getting back to his feet and continuing his very strong performance in the 1-0 victory over Hamburg.

It's refreshing to see that the DFB don't consider whether or not the player on the receiving end was injured when deciding on dolling out punishment for reckless offenses. The fact that Coman was able to complete the match has nothing to do with trying to send a message that those types of challenges will not be tolerated.

One person for whom the message did not get received was Hamburg manager Markus Gisdol. When asked for his thoughts about the decision he defiantly claimed that it should have been a yellow and that a red was "excessively harsh." Even Jung himself stated that the referee's decision was "defensible" and that "it was not indisputably a red card."

For what it's worth, Jung also mentioned that he apologized to Coman at halftime and his statements in defense of what he did are understandable coming from his perspective. Hopefully this will discourage him and others from this type of tackle and though this is Jung's third time being suspended as a professional (once for yellow card accumulation in the Regionaliga-West and once again in Regionaliga-Nord) this is his first major incident in the Bundesliga. He's still relatively young so there is plenty of time for the message to sink in.