If the pre-season matches were anything to go by, this promises to be a hard fought and aggressive campaign. There was nothing friendly about the so-called friendly matches, with fouls, bookings, sendings off and in some cases even punch-ups dominating the headlines. Sevilla's Prieto was suspended for a couple of weeks without pay and stripped of the captaincy for punching a referee's assistant in Portugal (see "Vestuario" for more details). Alavés abandoned one game against Logroñes after the third division referee sent off four of their players, and Betis and Racing Santander (to name but two) had players sent off in their games. Mallorca's match at Hajduk Split in the champions league qualifying round ended in a brawl, with fists (and handbags?) flying in all directions, and Stimac was banned for six matches as a result of punching a member of Mallorca's technical staff.

And so on to the opening weekend of the season, and the first two red cards were shown to players who normally are on the receiving end of fouls. Luis Figo though can give as good as he gets, and after prolonged aggravation from Albelda and company, he lost his temper and earned himself a second yellow card in the closing minutes of Real Madrid's game at Valencia. His manager Del Bosque, normally quite reserved, also got himself booked for protesting after his expensive stars were hacked down time and time again. The other sending off was Alavés striker Rubén Navarro, who had scored a brilliant goal earlier on, but who picked up two bookings in over-enthusiastic tackles. Both players are expected to pick up one match bans.

Several other well known villains opened their account this weekend, including Luis Enrique, Vinny Samways, Paqui and Hierro. We don't have enough space to publish all the players who picked up yellow cards, so we limit ourselves to those who finished in our table last season. Ten players had to sit out the opening game of the season due to suspensions dished out at the end of previous campaign, including Celta's Russian duo Karpin and Mostovoi and Valencia's Pellegrino. Again we only publish last year's top villains, plus Gabri and Larrainzar, who will miss the first two games for that reason. (27.08.01)