| Fun
and games from international referees in the midweek European games. Poland's
Ryszard Wojcik appeared to make two mistakes early on, allowing a Smith goal
for Leeds United with the player in an offside position, but more importantly
missing the fact that Raúl knocked in the equaliser with his hand. He
made up for it partly by apologising to the Leeds players at half time, but the
subject has been a talking point all week. The next day Italy's Stefan Braschi
disallowed a Kily González goal for Valencia in their match at Sturm
Graz, although that was less important as the Spaniards scored five more. And
then the next day England's Graham Barber completely ignored a rugby tackle
from behind by Barcelona's Cocu on Edu as he got free in front of goal. All
this provoked Celta's manager Víctor Fernández into saying that
the international refereeing standards were bad, and that Spanish referees were
the best in the world. Well let's not get carried away shall we, Víctor?
They may be one of the highest paid in the world with their new agreement, but
the best? Ask the managers of Alavés and Rayo what they think for
example of our man of the week Turienzo Alvarez, who stepped in at the last
minute in place of the indisposed Carmona Méndez. Mané said after
the match that he had never seen a man make so many mistakes in 90 minutes, not
even in the amateur divisions, and his team won the game! For example the
equaliser for Alavés came after a foul by Contra on Michel which the
referee ignored, and the ensuing fracas ended in Quevedo picking up a second
yellow card and then insulting the referee when leaving the pitch. Turienzo
ended up producing twelve yellows and two reds, the second to Téllez
after Ballesteros fooled him into believing he had been attacked by the player
(see villains section). Andradas Asurmendi restored Barcelona's faith in
officialdome after last week's disallowed goal, giving them a dubious penalty
against Mallorca and turning down two more valid appeals from the islanders.
Megía Dávila's performance motivated Antic to say that the ref
did everything but score Espanyol's third goal against Oviedo, and the manager
was reported for touching Megía's arm in the tunnel. and Mejuto
González missed a quite clear penalty by Hierro on Jankauskas, but then
a couple at the other end by Loren. All in all six players were sent off, with
Puentes Leira getting two in a minute, and over 60 yellow cards were shown. The
best in the world? If you measure that by number of cautions shown they could
be. (12.03.01) |
