| Spanish officials were due to show off their new sponsored
kits this weekend, but in the end they put it off another week until the deal
is properly sealed. The shirts will bear the name of internet TV channel
'Quiero', which means 'I want...' or 'I love...' in Spanish. Nobody loved the
referees this week though, with Esquinas Torres leaving the pitch at Murcia
after their cup tie with Zaragoza under a hail of missiles (the ground has been
closed for a game as a result), Espanyol ending up with nine men in their cup
match at Extremadura after Medina Cantalejo sent off two players, and Madrid
based Megía Dávila upsetting the Catalan nationalists by sending
off Barcelona's Abelardo before half time in their league fixture with
Valladolid. Prados García missed a clear hand ball by Larrainzar which
could have changed the course of the Basque derby, and Daudén
Ibáñez produced 15 cards in cup and league, and also upset the
Villarreal faithful disallowing a perfectly good goal by Moisés at the
weekend. Fernández Marín pulled a muscle in the first few minutes
in the game between Racing and Málaga, and had to hand over to the
fourth referee, a very young chap by the name of Romeo Moreno, who only started
to referee in regional matches last year and now officiates in the second
division B. He was as white as a sheet when he came on, but we suppose
refereeing is in the blood of some people and he recovered from early nerves to
show seven yellows and send off Txema towards the end of the match as if he was
a hardened professional. But probably the performance of the week
(white-stick-wise that is) goes to quick-draw Turienzo Alvarez, with seven
yellow cards in the first half between Deportivo and Valencia and two more in
the second, including a second to Ilie for handling the ball accidentally which
appeared absurd. At least two of the yellows were given for hard but perfectly
clean tackles, and others merited free kicks but certainly not cards. A
striking contrast was Losantos Omar in the game at Real Madrid, and hopefully
the watching Mr. Blatter of FIFA took note. Under their strict rules, he should
have booked Onopko and Roberto Carlos for having a go at each other just before
half time. That would have resulted in Oviedo being reduced to ten men as the
Russian midfielder had already been booked, spoiling the game completely.
However he got them together and calmed things down, and there were no further
problems. That is what refereeing is all about, not belligerent card waving
every time a foul is committed. True a couple of offside decisions were
dubious, but if FIFA allows some degree of modern technology to come in to the
game that type of human error could be avoided. Blatter said in a radio
interview before the match that they would only envisage introducing measures
to check whether a ball had crossed the goal line or not. We believe that this
should be extended to include other areas such as offsides, fouls etc., which
could be done without turning the game into a second rate version of American
football. That would avoid a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth, in
particular in Spain where passions are high. Why not give it a try?
(15.01.01) |
