So wait, to turn his body to shield and take the ball you have to jump on his leg with so much power? It's not like he pushed him 10 meters with his back, then I'd say he wanted to protect. But to me it looked like he focused entirely on his leg.
I repeat, anyone who thinks that was a red card for real is frigging mental midget. I read and seen analysis of this game from tons of sources since that incident, pretty much all say that was very harsh red card, that should signal something...