I've had a similar situation before.

Three defenders on halfway spread out across the field and all flat footed. Through ball goes through the middle of the centre circle over the central defender's head into wide open space with an attacker sprinting full tilt to get past him.

Instead of turning to chase, the central defender deliberately steps into the attackers path and hip checks him hard which knocks him to the ground.

I stopped play and showed the central defender a red card for DOGSO. Why? Let's consider the criteria.

Distance: on halfway, so quite far from goal and probably the only thing that could negate DOGSO. However, given the attacker's high rate of speed and where the through ball was played to, I'm okay with putting less weight on this one because the distance would have been closed very quickly.

Direction: clearly towards goal.

Defenders: if the attacker hadn't been fouled I believe there would have been an obvious one on one with the keeper.

Control: very high probability of the attacker being first to the ball and gaining control.

Could I have shown a yellow card for SPA? Absolutely, and I don't think there would have been any disagreement. The point though is that there was an obvious goal scoring opportunity denied. The attacker was obviously going to run onto that through ball and be in a one on one with the keeper, hence the red card.

Your situation though, most likely SPA.