After Chelsea’s defeat to Real Madrid, Rio Ferdinand says Antonio Rudiger will ‘regret’ his actions

Rio Ferdinand believes Antonio Rudiger will come to regret his post-match reaction to Chelsea’s Champions League loss to Real Madrid, in which he shoved David Alaba away when he attempted to console him.

The Blues put on a fantastic performance at the Bernabeu, taking a 3-0 lead (4-3 on aggregate) and appearing to be going for the semi-finals. Mason Mount, Rudiger, and Timo Werner all scored.

Luka Modric’s brilliant pass set up Rodrygo to send the game to extra time, where Karim Benzema – a week after his hat-trick in west London – headed home to secure a 5-4 aggregate victory.

Rudiger had spent the last minutes of the game up front, and when the final whistle blew, he was standing close to Alaba, who has spent nearly a decade at Bayern Munich and speaks German.

The Real defender attempted to console Rudiger by wrapping his arms around him and saying a few words, but the Chelsea midfielder pulled him away and stormed off, screaming and yelling before falling to his knees.

Other Real players attempted to shake Rudiger’s hand, but he stayed enraged on the ground, and Ferdinand believes the German international will regret his actions – though he was pleased to see the contract rebel display such emotion and ambition.

‘It’s emotional, dude,’ Ferdinand said on an International news channel in response to the clip of Rudiger shoving Alaba away. “And I don’t think he’d want to view those photographs or react like that”, he added.

‘However, you have no control over the feeling there.’ We’ve all been there after huge games, saying and doing things you later regret, thinking to yourself, “That’s not me, that’s not my typical nature.” But this is how football is viewed by the general public.’

‘Imagine the changing room there if you saw changing rooms after sports,’ he continued. ‘There will be things going flying’.

‘I slammed into things, and at times I ended up kicking people! ‘I got done at Chelsea by accidentally kicking someone, you don’t mean it, you simply lose your head, you don’t mean anything.’

‘But I like to see it because there’s the emotion; there’s a concern and a desire to win, and they understand what it means and how close they came to winning.’

Steve McManaman, another commentator, added: ‘He’s enraged, and he’s disturbed.’ You might imagine the range of emotions we experienced [from watching], but the range of emotions we experienced today was everything’.

‘You’re out of the competition, 3-1 down, and then you suddenly play fantastically and advance to the next round, 3-0 up, and then it happens again.’ You’ll see what I mean. It’s no surprise that Thomas Tuchel’s hair is greying’, he added.