| A lot
of our top villains got caught this week, with five sent off and 98 cards in
all between cup and league. Espanyol were reduced to nine men in their cup game
against Extremadura, with Pochettino and Toledo both sent off for second
bookable offences. Both miss the second leg this Wednesday. Three rather
rigorous sendings off this weekend, with Barcelona's Abelardo getting a direct
red for a late groin high tackle on Valladolid's Pachón (didn't mean it,
ref), Valencia's Ilie getting a second yellow for handling when the ball hit
him on the forearm (honest, guv), and Txema getting his second red of the
season for a second bookable offence from 20ish year old substitute referee
Romeo Moreno (does your mother know you are out at this time of night). Other
than those three, no less than ten players will miss next weekend's games after
reaching the next threshhold of yellow cards, including two of our villains,
Paqui and Fernando Niño, plus Barcelona's Petit, Real Madrid's Helguera,
two Víctors (Deportivo and Villarreal), Juanele (Zaragoza), Gustavo
López (Celta), Unai (Villarreal) and Lekumberri (Osasuna). If it goes on
at this rate there will be nobody left! And we can't finish off without a
mention for Djalminha, who somehow avoided a red card despite fighting with the
whole Valencia side and half of his own. He even attacked his teammate
Víctor who tried to calm him down after the final whistle, a fact which
went into the referee's book. A brilliant player, but sometimes...
(15.01.01) |
