Pablito Alfaro was not a happy man this weekend. The veteran Sevilla defender was shown a red card for the seventeenth time in his first division career, a record for the top flight. Alfaro protested that it had been no more than a playful kick on an opponent, no worse than several others in the same game, and that his reputation had gone before him. Don Pablo is a actually qualified doctor in his alter ego - rumours that he operates under the name of Dr. Jekyll are unfounded!

Alfaro's was one of four red cards shown this weekend, all of which were direct. Albacete's David Sánchez probably let his Barcelona past get the better of him when he came on as substitute against Espanyol, putting in a bone-crunching tackle of last year's top villain Albert Lopo only a quarter of an hour after coming on. Lopo went off on a stretcher, never to come back, and Sánchez followed him down the tunnel seconds later.

The other two red cards were both for managers, Racing's Lucas Alcaraz getting his marching orders for "shouting and waving his arms around", and Osasuna's Javier Aguirre for telling a linesman, "it's easy to referee Osasuna. isn't it, expletive, expletive, expletive". Elsewhere Numancia's Graff became the first player to reach the five yellow card barrier (remember he had a red card downgraded to yellow only a couple of weeks ago), and he will be suspended for the next match . (04.10.04)