| Not a
great amount of cards this week, only 51 yellows and two reds, but boy what a
week for penalties! The men in black obviously had instructions to get the goal
tally up and they went to it with a vengeance. No less than eight times the
feared fingers pointed at that little bit of white paint in front of the
goalkeepers, with our man of the week Esquinas Torres repeating three times, as
well as showing eight yellow cards and one red. In fact he had upset the local
crowd a bit with a couple of decisions, not sending off Málaga's keeper
Ceballos when he awarded the first penalty and then giving one against the home
side to level scores at 2-2 for which the Olympic diving judges would have had
Zárate in the gold medal position . So perhaps he was thinking of his
personal safety getting off the pitch (rummaging in his pockets for false
moustaches and that sort of thing) when Ceballos threw him a lifeline diving at
Iñaki's feet and bringing him down. Out came the red card, off went
Ceballos, in went the goal and back in the pocket went the false moustache.
Sorted. Other famous penalty decisions included Megía Dávila's at
the Las Palmas versus Valencia game, Jarni turning his back on the ball for
self protection before it struck his hand. Maybe Megía thought Jarni had
eyes in the back of his head. In any case the penalty was saved by Nacho
González, but in one of those funny twists of fate, González was
sent off two minutes later for a foul outside the area, Jarni had to go in goal
and Valencia scored anyway from the free kick. Why bother? Megía also
left Las Palmas without three players for their next game, selectively showing
cards to Samways and Jorge, who join González in the sin bin next week.
Las Palmas defender Paqui said some not very nice things about the referee in
the post-match press conference. Elsewhere, Bueno Grimal became not-so-bueno to
the Espanyol supporters when he gave a late penalty against them which cost
them the match. He also produced eight yellow cards during the 90 minutes.
Compared to the above, our two leaders, Medina Cantalejo and Daudén
Ibáñez had quiet games, showing five yellows each. Daudén
did however miss what would have been a ninth penalty when Hierro handled in
the area. Maybe he thought there were enough for one day?
(19.02.01) |
