| With
none of our top six referees in action this weekend, there were not too many
fireworks, with 58 yellow cards and only one red. Eleven of the cards came from
a referee who has not been mentioned much in these pages, Fernández
Marín, but he certainly upset Espanyol this week in their match at
Numancia. A bit like one of those games where you have to try and match up two
similar hidden tiles, Fernández managed to book eleven different players
without seeing the same face twice. Even more remarkable is the fact that none
of the eleven were on a suspension, so all will be available to their managers
next week. The main reason for Espanyol's ire was a more than dubious penalty
decision against them just before half time, which levelled the scores at one
apiece. Espanyol's physical trainer Ramón Catalá went into the
referee's match report for saying "leave off ref, you're off your rocker "
(well, the Spanish equivalent) at half time, and assistant manager Emili
Montiagut went one further accusing him in a loud voice of theft, which the
fourth official reported. Both were told that they were to consider themselves
sent off and not to return to the bench for the second half. Espanyol's city
neighbours Barcelona also felt they were hard done by as referee Pérez
Lasa disallowed what looked like a perfectly good goal by Kluivert early in the
first half for high kicking. It was the only time Barcelona got the ball in the
net in the whole game, and Pérez sent off Luis Enrique in the second
half to make matters worse. Espanyol and Barcelona cannot use referees as an
excuse for their poor performances however, and only the most fervent of
Catalan nationalists cried out against a central government plot.
(28.05.01) |
