A double week this week, with no less than 16 of the 24 referees in action taking charge of Spanish cup matches involving first division teams midweek (not to mention Mejuto González refereeing Oporto versus Juventus in the Champions League), and then a full league programme at the weekend. Two or three performances worthy of note in the cup, especially that of López Nieto in the game between Atlético Madrid and Rayo Vallecano. The referee awarded two controversial penalties early on, one for each side, sending off Atlético's García Calvo for the foul leading up to the second. Rayo won the match, and although Atlético successfully appealed the red card, the result could not be overturned. López also disallowed a perfectly good goal by Cembranos, gave the Rayo forward a yellow card which was also cancelled on appeal, sent off another Atlético player Hibic near the end (justified this time), and forgot that only five substitutes are permitted in the squad for cup games, allowing seven for Atlético and six for Rayo on the bench. He will have better days.

New referee Téllez Sánchez hopefully will learn that if you give a yellow card every time somebody commits a foul, especially in a cup tie which goes into extra time, you will eventually start doubling up. As a result he had to send off three players in a match which was not excessively dirty, between Logroñes and Zaragoza. He moves well clear at the top of our chart, with 39 cards in only four games, an average of almost 10 a time. Esquinas Torres also incurred the wrath of lowly Vecindario awarding two penalties to Las Palmas, the last one near the end after Jorge had missed the first earlier on.

The weekend's league matches were calm in comparison, with only a couple of incidents worth reporting. Espanyol felt hard done by seeing Ricardo sent off by referee Rodríguez Domínguez after seemingly worse fouls by Las Palmas went unpunished. He did however let Argensó off the hook with a yellow rather than red card when he brought down Tevenet for the penalty near the end. Pérez Pérez also let Zaragoza's Yordi off with a yellow for a retaliatory punch on César, who saw a second yellow himself for the first foul in the same incident, and Carmona Méndez awarded two controversial penalties in three minutes in the match between Sevilla and Mallorca, including yet another to Olivera, the first division diving gold medalist. (15.10.01)