Gil Manzano is reportedly being put into the proverbial “fridge” for two or three weeks after his performance in the quarter final second leg tie between Atlético Madrid and Barcelona. Apart from not controlling a heated match (Mario Suárez for example should have been sent off well before he eventually was), he made several mistakes, ruling out an early Neymar strike for a more than questionable offside and then awarding a penalty to the locals after Juanfran ran into Mascherano just outside of the area. That upset the visitors, but he then waved away much clearer appeals by Atleti for a second penalty when Griezmann’s shot hit Jordi Alba on the arm, and to make matters worse Barça ran up the other end and scored. That resulted in a clash between players and officials at half time, Fernando Torres getting booked for pushing Neymar after accusing him of theatrics, and team captain Gabi getting himself sent off with a second yellow card for complaining vociferously to the ref about that last decision. More was to come, including a comical incident when Arda Turan, angry about having his heel clipped and his boot removed by a bad tackle from behind, threw the boot at the linesman. His aim was so bad that Gil gave him the benefit of the doubt, only booking him for throwing his boot off the pitch, but that should have been a red and a long ban! A difficult game to arbitrate (he did still show 14 yellow cards and two reds!), but it didn’t do him any favours.

Gil (supposedly a highly thought of, up and coming, young referee) was at least allowed to take charge of the weekend game between Granada and Elche, but there too he made mistakes, disallowing a perfectly good goal by Elche´s Víctor Rodríguez and then sending off Damián Suárez for a second bookable offence, one of the yellow cards overturned on appeal. He wasn’t the only one to err though, for example our old friend José Antonio Teixeira Vitienes uncharacteristically dithering in the game between Celta and Córdoba, first of all awarding a penalty to the visitors when Planas brought down Rossi on the edge of the area, then (after a long consultation with his linesman) appearing to give a free kick outside of the area, and finally changing his mind completely and giving a free kick the other way! That took ages, during which time he was surrounded by angry players and staff, and for a short while he appeared to have lost it before eventually sending off Celta coach Berizzo. Who would want to be a referee in Spain? (05.02.15)

Name Games played Yellow cards Red cards Total
Velasco Carballo 14 108 6 114
Jaime Latre 14 102 5 107
Alvarez Izquierdo 14 100 4 104
Gil Manzano 14 98 5 103
González González 15 91 4 95
Teixeira Vitienes, F. 13 84 10 94
Estrada Fernández 13 88 6 94
Iglesias Villanueva 13 83 6 89
Hernández Hernández 16 84 4 88
Mateu Lahoz 13 80 5 85