It still amazes me that you don’t see how dangerous Balogun’s challenge was. Did you not see the dude’s ankle? Could have got broken

I don’t think we’re using ‘dangerous’ in the same way here. I’m saying there is no reasonable expectation that Balogun’s play could have resulted in a serious injury, regardless of what injury almost did occur. Just because Muharemovic’s ankle almost did get broken, doesn’t mean that was due to any risky, aggressive, or malicious move made by Balogun to begin with. That the foul didn’t even initially merit a yellowcard at the time points to the same conclusion.

When I was taught to be a referee (granted, that was 15 years ago), they urged us not to issue red cards unless the play itself was uniquely dangerous, where that if another player committed the same foul there would be the same high risk of injury. The two other remedies for keeping this type of play in-check are more reasonable and less likely to cause chaotic discontent from the bench, and sending the player off doesn’t make anyone else on the field any safer.

Your job as referee isn’t to doll out justice or retribution for harm committed on the field, it’s to keep the players safe and the game fair to the extent reasonable.

Quansah didn’t even touch the guy with studs and won the ball.

That’s not the point - he made a needlessly aggressive tackle against an attacker that wasn’t an immediate threat on goal, and hit Gallardo midway up the shin with studs up. If someone else on the field made a similarly needless and dangerous tackle, the risk of serious injury would be just as high. It could have just as easily been a yellow card, but what made the tackle worse was that it was done without any apparent strategic advantage over staying on his feet, which made it seem like he did it in part because there was a risk of harm.

If the ref didn’t take action, it was likely that the two would continue escalating their challenges until someone did get injured