As reported last week, Spanish referees underwent their annual tests during the two week lay-off, and all passed with flying colours. Their relief was evidenced by the low number of cards which were shown at the weekend, with only two reds being produced over the ten matches. They did though manage to pick out one of our top villains this season, Espanyol's Albert Lopo getting his marching orders after getting booked twice for flattening Sevilla's Reyes, and he moves up to first place in our chart ahead of his team mate Wome. The Catalans are setting new records this year, and have now picked up seven red cards in the first twelve games. The other red card was for Atlético Madrid's young full back Ortíz, who was shown two yellow cards in the first half of the game against Valladolid.

Five players will miss next week's matches after picking up a fifth booking of the season, Etxeberría (Athletic), Capi (Betis), Marcos (Mallorca), Schürrer (Real Sociedad) and Ponzio (Zaragoza). Finally, both Parri (Albacete) and Jesús (Valladolid) were let off their one match bans last week, the former after one of his yellow cards was cancelled by the appeals committee and the latter after his suspension was put on hold by the CEDD pending further investigation of his sending off the week before. (25.11.03)