Poor old Carmona Méndez drew the short straw this weekend. After a week in which the papers were full of complaints about referees' performances, the 44 year old lawyer from Badajoz was chosen to officiate in the game between Zaragoza and Barcelona. Following last week's match at Albacete (see week 22 report), the Zaragoza management and fans were livid, and the club decided to distribute 11,000 red cards amongst supporters which they waved when the officials came out on to the pitch.

As luck would have it, the match was a difficult one to judge, with countless borderline offside decisions, hard tackles and possible penalties. Carmona and his linesmen stoically soldiered on despite a hail of objects from the stands every time the crowd felt they had made a mistake, and he steadfastly refused to mention any wrong-doing from the supporters in his match report, contrary to what others do regularly (Iturralde for example mentioned this week that the teams had come out on to the pitch one minute and twenty seconds late!).

Did he make mistakes? A few, yes, in particular a couple of tight offside decisions which even the TV analysts had difficulty agreeing on, and what looked like a clear penalty when Valdés pushed Cani off the ball (although the referee apparently thought that Cani had also fouled the keeper). But a sterling performance in difficult conditions, and thanks to him and his colleagues a potentially explosive situation was defused. (14.02.05)