Most of the first division sides were in action in the second round of the cup midweek, but by and large the villains managed to escape the wrath of the referees. In fact there were only three red cards shown over the 16 ties, none of which went to players from the top flight. Real Unión manager Miguel Sola was shown a direct red after he got too excited as his team beat Athletic Bilbao, and the other two were for Ferrol's Rambier against Deportivo and Numancia's Manolo, who was playing against his old club Celta.

Reasonably quiet in the league at the weekend too, with only two players sent off in the top flight. One though was our leading villain Unai, and he was shown the red card for the third time this season after picking up a second booking in Villarreal's match at Barcelona. The other one went to Espanyol's Alex Fernández, who finally got a call up to the first team squad but picked up two cautions within fifteen minutes of coming on as substitute against Celta.

Three players reached the five yellow card threshold this week and will be suspended, Racing's defensive midfielder Nafti, Betis right back Varela (currently lying second in our table) and Barcelona's Gabri, who by coincidence is also suspended in the Champions League. Finally the disciplinary appeals committee threw the book at Betis defender Filipescu, adding another four games ban to the two he was given a couple of weeks ago. Both suspensions relate to the same incident where he was sent off for retaliating after a foul by Recreativo's Raúl Molina and then punched the linesman on the arm on his way off the field. (12.11.02)