| Only
one name on everyone's lips this weekend, the unfortunate Losantos Omar. The
poor man drew the electronic short straw and was pitched in to one of the
hottest Real Madrid versus Barcelona derby matches in years. Everything was
going just about all right until the second minute of injury time, when with
the scores at 2-2 Barcelona's Rivaldo unleashed a shot from the edge of the
area. The ball flew low through a crowd of players, and Madrid's Iván
Helguera stuck out a foot and deflected it past his own keeper. It looked like
a winner, but Losantos Omar saw his linesman flagging and disallowed the goal.
What happened? Well, there were three Barça players in an offside
position with their backs to goal who did not interfere with play, so everyone
thought maybe he had given offside, but in the end it turned out that he and
his linesman thought that it was one of the three, Kluivert, and not Helguera
who got the last touch. Cameras later showed he was clearly wrong, but that was
fairly academic as the result stood. The decision sparked off a wave of
reaction from the Barcelona players and management, with Guardiola going in to
the book for telling him that he was playing with the emotions of millions of
people and he would regret it in the morning, Serra Ferrer getting mentioned in
the referee's report after telling him he had handed the league to Madrid and
he wouldn't have disallowed it if Madrid had scored it, and club president Juan
Gaspart saying on television that he felt as if the referee had just stolen his
wallet. Barcelona also protested that the referee had not seen a physical
attack by a supporter on their goalkeeper Reina as he went to the corner to
collect the ball, although it appears that police are currently investigating
the incident, and Madrid countered that he should have sent off Gabri in the
second half. Who would ever want to be a referee in Spain?The performance of
Losantos totally overshadowed everything else this week, although there were a
couple of other refereeing decisions that caught the eye. Prados "Mr. Penalty"
García pulled another one out of the hat to give Valencia a point at
Zaragoza much to the anger of the home side management, and Daudén
Ibáñez upset Villarreal's president with a string of yellow cards
and some dubious decisions as they lost to Málaga. Bueno Grimal produced
eight yellows at Numancia in a day where 52 yellows and 2 reds were shown in
all, an average week. If it were not for that disallowed goal of course....
(05.03.01) |
