Ibrahimovic was dismissed after 31 minutes following a challenge with Oscar which incensed the Chelsea players who surrounded Dutch referee Bjorn Kuipers who produced the red card.

The French side refused to be knocked out of their stride though and progressed to the quarter-final after extra-time on the away goals rule.

Ibrahimovic insists he was baffled by the decision, but his wrath was firmly directed at the gamesmanship of the Chelsea players.

Kuipers was quick to make his decision, although he was surrounded by nine Chelsea players as he pulled the card out of his top pocket.

“I don’t know if I have to get angry or start to laugh,” Ibrahimovic said. “For me when I saw the red card I was like ‘the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing’

“That is not the worst. The worst is when I got the red card all the Chelsea players come around. It felt like I had a lot of babies around me.”

And Ibrahimovic is adamant Oscar feigned injury, saying he withdrew from the challenge.

“I pulled out, because I saw him come in the tackle,” Ibrahimovic said.

“I don’t know if he was acting afterwards. Doesn’t matter. We won the game, we went through and let’s see what happens.”

The 33-year-old lauded the performance of his team-mates, who defied the numerical advantage to twice come from behind and progress 3-3 on aggregate.

“It was an amazing performance because we were playing with one less,” he added.

“They played with big hearts. It’s not easy to play with 10 guys, especially against a team like Chelsea. We showed quality and big heart.”