Iturralde González was once more in the eye of the hurricane in the midweek round of matches. The referee stepped in at the last minute for Carmona Méndez in the match between Real Madrid and Betis, but he didn't have the best of nights. In the first place he awarded an indirect free kick inside the area to Madrid for a supposed back pass by Luis Fernández late in the first half, which led to Roberto Carlos's thunderbolt goal. However from television pictures it appeared that the defender didn't intend a pass to his keeper Doblas, and the ball also took a slight deflection off Ronaldo. And then in the second half he further upset the visitors by waving away appeals for offside by Michael Owen when Iván Helguera scored their third goal. Curiously Iturralde and Carmona had been in the press recently after the latter had said that he was thinking of giving it all up after the Zaragoza versus Barcelona game (see week 23 report). Iturralde was unsympathetic, saying that if he felt like that he should go home and stay home. No information was apparently given as to why Carmona didn't referee this match, but maybe he decided to take his colleague's advice? (04.03.05)