| With
the new sponsorship deal with TV internet channel 'Quiero' now in place,
referees were in a benevolent mood, which means we have little to report.
Ansuategui Roca was celebrating his record 200th game in charge for the match
between Málaga and Barcelona, and he gave out more pardons than a newly
elected French president, letting off Abelardo for handling in the area, Reina
for handling outside the area, and De los Santos for his lumberjack
impersonation on Rivaldo. After the game Cocu appealed to referees to protect
the Brazilian star, but in fact he is only the fifth most fouled player in the
league, behind Mendieta and Figo amongst others. Medina Cantalejo kept his lead
in our chart with another seven yellow cards, below his previous average per
match, and Rodríguez Santiago showed twelve in two games this week, the
Spanish federation 'time warp' rules on postponed matches means that he had to
officiate in the midweek game between Real Madrid and Zaragoza (he was the
designated referee back in November) and then again at Alavés at the
weekend. We hope he slept well on Sunday. The league's most lenient referee
García-Aranda had a slight wobbly, producing ten yellows and sending off
arch-villain Juanfran for a very silly second bookable offence, but nobody
complained at all (except Juanfran). García had only averaged three
cards a week before that. Iturralde González didn't even show one card
in the game at Montjuic, which must be a record in Spain (maybe he swallowed
his whistle or something), but Daudén Ibáñez did get a bit
of stick for his penalty decision which gave Bilbao a point against Deportivo.
But in the end even the second division didn't produce any outstanding
performances this week, so in the absence of any real villain our white stick
(let's call it grey this week) goes to Prados García who awarded two
slightly dubious penalties this week and sent off Valladolid's Fernando Sales
with two yellow cards in a minute near the end. Prados is leading the penalties
table, having now given an average of one a game in the nine matches he has
refereed in the league, three ahead of such notable figures as our chart
toppers Medina Cantalejo and Daudén Ibáñez. At least it
livens things up a bit. (29.01.01) |
