The World Cup continues tonight with England’s mammoth clash with Mexico in the Round of 16.
The Three Lions will need to overcome the seemingly impossible if they are to reach the quarter-finals, with Mexico having lost only two competitive games at their iconic Azteca home since 1966.
Thomas Tuchel’s men will need to keep their heads if they are to prevail in Mexico City, with one Three Lions star in particular needing to be careful, given a booking this evening will rule him out of any potential quarter-final match.
Here’s how the yellow and red card rules work at the World Cup and how many games players will be forced to miss through suspension.
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How do the yellow card rules work?
Yellow cards were wiped after the group stage and will be wiped again after the quarter-final stage.
This means that any player who picked up a yellow card in the group stage is not suspended for the Round of 16 if they were booked again in the Round of 32.
However, if a player is shown a yellow card in both the Round of 32 and Round of 16 stages, they will be suspended for the team’s quarter-final game.
Similarly, if a player is booked in either the Round of 32 or Round of 16, and then again in the quarter-final, they will miss the semi-final through suspension.
But given the amnesty after the quarter-final stage, a yellow card in the semi-final will not rule a player out of the final.
This ensures that only a red card in the semi-final will rule a player out of featuring in a World Cup final – undoubtedly the biggest match of any player’s career.
England player at risk of suspension
Should England beat Mexico, and Jude Bellingham gets booked, the Real Madrid superstar will miss the quarter-final against Norway.
Bellingham was shown a yellow card in the first half of the dramatic comeback win over DR Congo on Wednesday.
How many games do players miss with a red card?
FIFA rules state that any player picking up a red card in the World Cup will be suspended for the team’s following game, regardless of what stage the competition is at.
This applies to red cards resulting from two yellow cards and straight red cards.
However, this has turned out to not always be the case at this World Cup, with USA striker Florian Balogun’s red card during the Round of 32 win over Bosnia looking like it was set to rule him out the Round of 16 game against Belgium.
But in an unprecedented move, FIFA has elected to suspend Balogun’s automatic one match ban for a year, with Belgium saying in a statement they are ‘astonished’ at the decision.