Referees have finally woken up it seems after failing to find a red card between them in the opening round of matches. Nineteen of the twenty four first division arbiters were in action during the first round of the cup, and at last we had some action. Still not quite up to full speed though (79 yellows and six reds), and those that did make mistakes tended to compensate them later in the match. For example Rodríguez Santiago disallowed four goals by Barcelona for offside (two at least were borderline), but then gave them a dubious penalty against Novelda. Rodríguez Santiago sent off Darío Silva rather harshly (some say), but then awarded Málaga a questionable spot kick, and López Nieto gave a penalty at each end within a minute of each other.

And so on to day two of the league, and things really started to heat up. We wondered last week whether the new boys would make a name for themselves, and one has shot right to the top of our chart already! Rubinos Pérez caused great wailing and gnashing of teeth in Vitoria, failing to spot that Racing Santander's Pablo Lago had knocked the ball back with his arm as the visitors scored what was to be the only goal of the game. To make matters worse he steadfastly refused to consult his linesman over the decision, and then sent off Alavés defender Geli later on. Needless to say he was not popular with the fans at the end of the game.

Neither for that matter was Muñiz Fernández, who re-opened the spectre of plots against Atlético Madrid with some appalling decisions. The statistics tell the tale, with five yellows and a red to Atlético players against one yellow for Sevilla, even though the visitors were employing terrorist tactics throughout the game. Three of the yellows (and consequently the red for Fernando Torres) were for diving in the penalty area, two of which seemed more like penalties, and actions such as the elbow to the face of Aguilera (see villains section) went unpunished. Atlético's president Jesús Gil has remained calm so far though, having learnt his lesson for speaking out of turn before. Nice to see things returning to normal. (17.09.02)