A challenge on Boubakary Soumaré in 2022 triggered a chain of events that left the forward fighting for his careerAlmost a thousand days have passed since Lucas Paquetá was shown a yellow card for a late challenge on Leicester’s Boubakary Soumaré in a tame home defeat for West Ham in November 2022, an otherwise inconsequential booking that triggered an extraordinary chain of events that left the Brazilian fighting for his career.As Paquetá’s lawyer noted after he was cleared of spot-fixing on Thursday, Paquetá has shown more spirit and resilience during his two-year legal battle with the Football Association than his teammates managed that afternoon, although even after being exonerated in the most high-profile corruption case to hit English football since the Bruce Grobbelaar match-fixing trial three decades ago, the West Ham midfielder’s victory feels somewhat pyrrhic. Continue reading...