Carrying on the theme from last week about international referees, this week we were told that the Champions League tie between Atlético and Barcelona was going to be officiated by the best referee in the world, Italy’s Nicola Rizzoli. He was no Colina though (he wasn’t even bald!), and there were many questions about his performance, not least of which that last minute hand ball by Gabi in the Atlético area which he gave as a free kick outside of the box. That may have cost Barcelona the triple, but up to that point he had favoured the Catalans if anything, letting Piqué off a penalty appeal for hands, failing to penalize Luis Suárez for flattening his fellow countryman Godín with a flying elbow, and only showing Iniesta a yellow card when he gave away the earlier penalty instead of a red. Back home it was another relatively quiet week, and once again there were no red cards. You know, we think we prefer our lot to all those “extranjeros”! (18.04.16)

Name Games played Yellow cards Red cards Total
Iglesias Villanueva 21 144 12 156
Sánchez Martínez 19 135 9 144
Clos Gómez 21 136 8 144
Del Cerro Grande 21 135 6 141
González González 22 131 8 139
Velasco Carballo 20 128 10 138
Fernández Borbolán 20 119 9 128
Gil Manzano 19 119 3 122
Estrada Fernández 20 111 8 119
Prieto Iglesias 20 116 3 119