Rangers Midfielder Receives Both Red Card and Praise; Dressing Room Disappointed

According to a report by media outlet The Scottish Sun, Rangers midfielder Vanja Dragojevic was sent off in the 76th minute of his country's UEFA Nations League group stage fixture against Germany. He was one of the two Serbian players to be shown the way out of the field in a game that Germany won 3-0. The Rangers star, however, was praised by his manager.

Gaffer Veljko Paunovic was full of praise for Dragojevic, whom he said was one of the star performers of the second half. He said, “In the second half, we were better. We started excellently with Vanja. We scored, and we were close to making it 3-2. We had the same number of good chances as Germany.”

Introduced at the start of the second half, the 20-year-old was on the pitch for about half an hour before he was shown a red card owing to a tackle on Bayern Munich player Joshua Kimmich. He was the first to be shown the red card, and was closely followed by teammate Andrija Zivkovic. 

Manager Paunovic, however, has expressed his frustration at the decisions made by the officials during the match, which he felt were unfair to his side. The Serbian dressing room also, according to the gaffer, feels the same. He said, “The dressing room is very disappointed with the decisions made on the pitch. That part hurts a lot; it was horrible.” He further added, “It is painful that we are getting red cards because of this.”

Jurgen Klopp’s side, during the match, was handed an early lead after Serbian player Srdjan Babic scored an own goal in the 3rd minute of the game. Florian Wirtz and Brajan Gruda scored once each to take Germany's goal tally to 3 before Babic pulled one back for Serbia. However, it proved to be a mere consolation as Germany went on to win the fixture 3-1. 

Vanja Dragojevic will now be out for his country's next game against Greece. However, fans of the player will get to see him in action once he rejoins his club side after the completion of the international break. Rangers, who are due to face Motherwell on Matchday 14 of the Scottish Premiership, will most probably be the next appearance of the 20-year-old midfielder, if manager Derek McInnes decides to provide him with minutes immediately after the break. 

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