It's the most unfortunate scene in football. Absolutely no one wants to see a player suffer a bad leg break at any time but on live TV it's particularly horrible. Every remembers watching the Eduardo and David Busst incidents, and the fact that those players are remembered more for their injuries than anything else is indicative of just how much they stick in everyone's minds.
Given his age and the kind of medical care he is set to receive, we can all hope that Luke Shaw doesn't suffer the same fate. Louis Van Gaal has confirmed that it is a double break and that he will be out for a minimum of six months. The phrase 'double break' is inevitably followed by thoughts of 'career ending' and while the Man United manager may be confident that that is not the case, it's easy to see why there would be such worries considering the nature of the injury.
With that in mind, there has been quite a bit of debate over whether the tackle should have been punished or not. For his part, PSV defender Hector Moreno, who himself suffered a broken leg during the 2014 World World Cup, has said that he played the ball but questions over his part in the incident were unimportant at this time.
I think I played the ball, but in this kind of situation I don’t care if it was a foul. I feel bad for his family. I don’t know how bad it is. I had myself that situation like that during the World Cup and it’s bad. It’s difficult to say what happened. Now I just hope he will be back as soon as possible.
Referee Nicola Rizzoli took no action on the tackle and that's a decision which has been met with quite a bit of criticism not least from Van Gaal who was certainly trying to keep a lid on his feelings when he was asked about the incident.
When I say it’s a penalty and a red card, I’m a bad loser. It was a bad tackle with two legs. Every word I say is always interpreted in the wrong way.
It was in the 16 metre and it was a very bad tackle, with two legs.
There have been suggestions from many quarters that Moreno's challenge was malicious with Graham Poll savaging the tackle in his column in the Daily Mail stating that 'Moreno showed no regard for his opponents safety'.
As tends to happen with situations like this, there worst of football fandom has been brought out with a quick twitter search for Moreno showing the absolute worst of humanity. Twitter death threats are ten a penny these days so we won't bother including any but you get the point.
The decision to award the Mexican the man of the match award also came in for quite a bit of criticism in the immediate aftermath of the match.
Hector Moreno named UEFA man of the match after breaking Luke Shaw’s leg http://t.co/UMHdgWPmRq pic.twitter.com/9WjNp8nz2m
— Eurosport (@eurosport) September 16, 2015
Moreno breaks a player's leg with a poor challenge and should have been sent off yet is named man of the match by UEFA. Hmmmm ....
— James Ducker (@TelegraphDucker) September 15, 2015
While it is understandable that the Man United manager would be upset with the fact that one of his star players suffered such a bad injury, demonising Moreno appears to be rather harsh.
Howard Webb, speaking on BT Sports, was one of many to come to Moreno's defence with his assertion that it was a ball winning challenge. We're sure plenty of people will disagree but there certainly didn't seem to be anything malicious in Moreno actions and the tackle which resulted in the injury is one which is seen regularly. 99 times out of 100 it would applauded as a great challenge.
Here's the tackle again if you haven't seen it.
La entrada de Héctor Moreno a Luke Shaw http://t.co/ViINYEpZjJ vía @jugadinho
— Forever United (@MUnitedEs) September 15, 2015
