Marc Guehi's Controversial Elbow on Gabri Veiga Sparks Outrage

Marc Guehi walked off at half-time in Porto with barely a mark on him. Gabri Veiga did not.

The Manchester City defender left the Porto midfielder bloodied on the turf after a brutal first-half collision in their Champions League league-phase meeting in Portugal – and then watched on as referee Szymon Marciniak kept his cards in his pocket.

A flying elbow and a bloodied Veiga

The flashpoint came in the first half. Guehi rose aggressively to challenge for a high ball, his elbow flailing as Veiga came in underneath him. The contact was instant and ugly.

Veiga crumpled. He stayed down, face smeared with blood, treatment team sprinting on as City regrouped around the referee. For a couple of minutes, the game stopped and the Estádio do Dragão held its breath.

No whistle for a foul. No yellow. No red.

Guehi, 26, simply jogged back into position. Veiga, after lengthy treatment, eventually staggered to his feet and played on, patched up but clearly the victim of the clash.

That was enough to light up screens across Europe.

“Got away with murder”

Social media erupted. The language was unforgiving.

• “Marc Guehi absolutely clattered Gabri Veiga,” wrote one fan, summing up the sense of shock at the lack of sanction.
• “Guehi has gotten away with murder there,” came another post, echoing a phrase that would be repeated again and again.
• “Guehi getting away with murder. Never change Uefa,” added a third, turning frustration into a broader swipe at European officiating.
• Others focused on the danger of the challenge. “Guehi is lucky there. That is a dangerous challenge,” one fan insisted, while another demanded: “How is Guehi not getting a red card for this rash tackle?”

The pictures of Veiga on the ground, blood visible as he received treatment, only sharpened the sense of injustice among Porto supporters and neutrals alike.

Tempers spill into the tunnel

The anger did not stay online.

When the half-time whistle finally blew, the simmering resentment between the two benches boiled over. City players and staff clashed with their Porto counterparts as they made their way towards the tunnel, the argument that started on the pitch spilling into the concrete underbelly of the stadium.

Security staff rushed in to separate the groups as pushing and shoving broke out at the mouth of the tunnel. Reports from inside the ground even claimed the structure itself was “shaking” during the confrontation, a vivid sign of how far tempers had flared.

Amazon Prime reporter Gabriel Clarke painted the scene from pitchside, linking it directly back to the Guehi-Veiga incident.

“That anger triggered by the Veiga-Guehi incident, the pushing and the shoving, the bad-tempered behaviour, continued down the tunnel as the players came off for half-time,” he said. “Security for both teams were involved in separating the backroom staff and players from both sides as they entered the mouth of the tunnel.”

This was no minor disagreement. It was the physical manifestation of a half defined by one decision – or lack of one.

Nevin backs Guehi – with a warning

Not everyone joined the chorus of outrage. Former Chelsea and Everton winger Pat Nevin offered a defender’s perspective and came to Guehi’s aid, at least in part.

Speaking on the BBC, Nevin argued that the mechanics of aerial duels leave defenders with limited options.

“Where do you put your arm?” he asked. “If you’re going for the header and someone is lower you can’t make your arm disappear.”

Nevin did not absolve Guehi entirely. He accepted there was a case to answer.

“They could only make one argument that Marc Guehi is reckless,” he said, before backing Marciniak’s overall handling of the contest. “This referee has got everything spot on so far.”

That line will divide opinion. For Porto fans and plenty watching on, the image of Veiga on the ground, bloodied after an elbow to the head, tells a different story about what “spot on” should look like in a Champions League tie.