Wow! You've got to hand it to the federation, they had us fooled! In our last report we suggested that the referees designated for the four cup semi-final matches were rather tame chaps who were not going to rock the boat. Nothing of the kind. Between them and García-Aranda who refereed the final they sent off nine men and showed 53 cards in all, more than in an average weekend of ten games. Certainly the number of red cards would have set a new record for any week in the league championship. There was little indication when Carmona Méndez took over from the injured López Nieto to referee the first game between Atlético and Zaragoza, with a reasonable four yellows and a red, and that under extreme pressure as radical Atlético fans bombarded the pitch with objects in the first half. But then the normally mild mannered Ansuategui Roca produced an incredible sixteen yellow cards and consequently two reds in the foul-tempered game between Celta and Barça, and all came in the last 50 minutes. Believe it or not the press criticised him for being too lenient at the start until things got out of control, but then there wouldn't have been many players left if he had started earlier. Up to that game he had only sent off one player all season, and had averaged 4.75 cards a match. The poor man also apparently missed a punch by Juanfran and a penalty claim by each side, but he was probably too busy writing down names to concentrate on play. Losantos Omar was in charge of the second leg between Zaragoza and Atlético, and he flashed the red three times, including a rather harsh one to Paco which the appeal committee overturned. It was not a particulary hard match, but the visitors had to bring on two substitutes before the game was 20 minutes old, and Losantos upset them completely sending off Correa for diving when it looked like he should have given a penalty. Then Fernández Marín took over for the return tie between Barça and Celta and showed twelve more cards, including reds for Gabri and Jesuli.

And so to the final, where García-Aranda was in charge for the last time before retiring. He awarded a penalty to Zaragoza in the first half, and must have thought he had changed sport at half time as Celta spent much of the second half shamelessly trying to win penalties, with Mostovoi and Juanfran in particular diving all over the place. As a result he probably missed a genuine penalty by Aguado on Catanha. He too sent off a player in the last minute to finish off his career with a flourish. There will be four new faces next season, with Andradas Asurmendi also retiring and two other of our favourite referees, the theatrical and emotive penalty king Prados García (remember the Contreras pushing incident last season) and not-so-Bueno Grimal (who sent off an away player for the first time in his very last match), being forced to give up the game rather than drop to the second division. They were both given low ratings by the federation officials who score the referees' performances every match, and as they are both 44 years old they were asked to retire. A shame really, and regular readers of this feature will surely miss two of the most eccentric and colourful characters in the Spanish game today. The four referees who are promoted from the second division A are as follows: Téllez Sánchez, González Vázquez, Pérez Pérez and Pino Zamorano. We await their performances with baited breath. Congratulations then to Daudén Ibáñez, our whitestick champion, who survives to fight another season. We wish you and your colleagues a quiet relaxed holiday. See you next season! (01.07.01)