For the second week in a row, Pino Zamorano was on the front page of all the sporting press. Last weekend it was the fact that he did not send off Javi Navarro for helping Arango to be the first man to go into orbit without a space rocket, and this week it was his performance in the match between Barcelona and Betis which hit the headlines. Reading the Madrid press, it appears that Pino is part of a conspiracy to allow Barcelona to win the league, listing his errors as: sending off Rivas for a harsh red card in the first penalty incident, not giving Deco a second yellow card for a foul in the second half, awarding a dubious/non-existent second penalty to Barcelona for a foul on Belletti by Edu, and adding on too much (five minutes) extra time allowing Barça to equalize in the last minute. Strangely the Barcelona press didn't report any of that, mentioning that the only mistake the referee made was to allow the first goal for Betis after Edu picked up the ball in an offside position. Depends on which side of the fence you sit, we suppose!

All of that probably comes about because Real Madrid and Barcelona are about to meet, but the remarks in the press only serve to hot up the atmosphere and cause bad feeling all round. No change there, then! Elsewhere Esquinas Torres upset our old friend Bernd Schuster once again when he allowed Diego Tristán's goal to stand even though he was clearly offside, and Iturralde did his usual about face, awarding a penalty to Málaga and then changing his mind. And even the usually reliable Undiano Mallenco made a mistake this weekend, ruling out a goal from Ronaldo which should probably have been allowed. A normal weekend for Spanish football really! (05.04.05)