David, David, what have you done? David Beckham uttered his first public words in Spanish this weekend, and got a red card for his pains. The England captain was clearly upset about some earlier refereeing decisions and the fact that his side was once again behind, and let rip at the linesman when he gave a foul against him. Unfortunately his choice of vocabulary was not the best, and his cry of "hijo de p***", clearly caught on camera, left the referee with no option but to send him off. We blame Roberto Carlos for teaching him such things!

Beckham's was one of seven red cards shown this weekend, the second highest in the league to date. Once again three came in one match, Albacete's Unai and David Sánchez getting their marching orders at the beginning and end of the second half respectively, the former for a second booking and the latter for a bad tackle, and they were joined by Sevilla's volatile manager Joaquín Caparrós, who was shown the red card for threatening to kill Sánchez for the incident, and had to be held back by fellow members of staff to stop him from doing so. It is as yet unclear whether he will be up before the disciplinary committee for abusive language or for attempted murder.

Elsewhere Celta's Berizzo picked up his fourth red card of the season for a high tackle, taking him level with Lopo on that score. Zaragoza's Cuartero was also shown a red card for the same reason late in the game against Atlético, and Barcelona's Puyol was sent for an early bath for a second bookable offence against Racing. Subject to appeal their season has ended a week early, and they will provisionally be joined by twelve others who complete the cycle of yellow cards, including three from Real Madrid, Salgado (15 cards), Guti (10 cards) and Zidane (5 cards). The others are Alex Fernández (Espanyol), Acciari (Murcia) and Nafti (Racing) with ten bookings, and Méndez (Celta), Leo Franco (Mallorca), Carreras (Murcia), Aranburu (Real Sociedad) and our old favourite Darío Silva (Sevilla) with five, (18.05.04)