None of our top five were in action in the midweek round of games, but we still had several talking points on the refereeing front. Three goals were disallowed for borderline decisions, two of which at least could have changed the results of their games. For example Nihat's early strike for Real Sociedad was ruled out by Ramírez Domínguez for a previous foul by Kovacevic, after which the Basques went on to lose 4-0 at Atlético, and Antoñito thought he had scored Sevilla's second, only for Puentes Leira to disallow it for a borderline offside by Darío Silva. That match ended 1-1. Probably the only wrong decsion of the three though was that of Teixeira Vitienes, who ruled out a goal by Athletic's Ezquerro before they went on to win 2-1.

Penalty decisions were also influential in the outcome of matches, and Irureta was not happy that Téllez Sánchez pointed to the spot when Correa fell rather easily under Romero's challenge. On the other hand Pino Zamorano didn't see anything wrong with a hard tackle by Cáceres on Vicente which left the young winger out of action, and Losantos Omar waved play on when Racing's Bodipo was felled in the area by an Espanyol defender. Losantos also disallowed two goals by the Cantabrians, but Bodipo's offside and Javi Guerrero's hand ball were quite clear, even though manager Lucas Alcaraz didn't quite agree. (31.10.03)