| There's something strange about Celta and referees. We're
not suggesting anything funny or underhand is going on, not at all, but for the
third time this season a referee has had to leave the field injured during the
course of a match involving the Gallician side. This time it was López
Nieto who appeared to pull a hamstring halfway through the first half, and he
was replaced by second division B referee Llorente Carcedo, who was acting as
the fourth official up to that point. As with his two predecessors, Llorente
used the occasion to make a name for himself, sending off Marini and Karpin at
the end of the game after a brief spell of handbag swinging (or stiletto
kicking perhaps?). Marini's red card was cancelled on appeal as the video
proved his relative innocence, but Karpin will miss the rest of the league
unless his appeal succeeds. One of our favourites, not-so-Bueno Grimal set what
must be a new record, producing twelve yellow cards in the game between
Espanyol and Mallorca. Eight of them were for the visitors, including two to
Marcos, who will miss the next match after his sending off. It was only the
second red card the referee has shown all season, strange for a man who has
averaged over seven cards a game, and even stranger Bueno has still never sent
off a home team player in all his time in the first division. Daudén
Ibáñez moved back to the top of our charts with another ten
cards, including a second yellow and a consequently red for Helder . The second
yellow was for protesting that he didn't show a yellow card to Celades for a
foul on Cembranos that he didn't commit, if you follow what we are saying. But
maybe the performance of the day came from the penalty king Prados
García. He gave another three in the match between Osasuna and Las
Palmas to make it thirteen in the season, almost double the number of any other
referee. The third one to Las Palmas was very dubious, and having also ruled
out a perfectly valid goal by Iván Rosado earlier on, his performance
cost Osasuna a much needed two points. Needless to say the crowd didn't applaud
him off the pitch. Elsewhere Barcelona were lucky to get away with a one goal
victory at Alavés after Medina Cantalejo turned down two penalty appeals
and then sent off Contra. All the above contrasts with the performance of
García Aranda, who once again managed to go 90 minutes without showing a
card in the game between Real Sociedad and Málaga. As we've always said,
if there's no trouble in a game, the referee has no reason to invent it. Others
could take note. (21.05.01) |
