La Liga reffing at it’s worst, ONCE AGAIN.

By: Anthony | November 3rd, 2008

Everyone knows that La Liga probably has some of the world’s worst referees, especially for arguably the world’s best league. This was once again evident this past Sunday when we visited Valladolid for a clash that should have been over after 26 minutes, but no, Pérez Lasa wanted to be the centre of attention for this match.

We went into Valladolid looking to rebound back from two consecutive defeats to Málaga last weekend in the league and SD Ponferradina on Wednesday in the Copa del Rey. I can assure you, this was definitely not what we wanted to leave Valladolid with… A rediculous call by the ref was all it took to send us back to Nervión with nothing to show for.

The game started amazing with some world class vision by Romaric to spring Navas on the right who lead a 4 on 1 break whom which then touched it to Renato who ever so calmly slotted it into the net. It only took 8 minutes for us to get another goal which we could actually say was a GOLAZZO. Some amazing buildup play by Luis Fabiano who passed off to Romaric, who then put it out to Maresca on the right wing who crossed perfectly to the foot of Navas who scored in style with I’d say, a half scissors. Luis Fabiano was showed a yellow card on the play for apparently “overly celebrating” which does not make sense what so ever because that should have meant Renato, Navas, Romaric and the rest of the team should have also considering they were all huddled up… Rediculous.

We were all over Valladolid, they didn’t even have a single attempt on goal at this point. Fabiano was sent in on goal alone when he moved around Asenjo only to be slightly knocked down by the Valldolid last man. Apparently this knock was not sufficient enough for a penalty to be called so therefore Fabiano who was already on a yellow, received another which then meant he was red carded and we were now down to 10 men.

This brings about my important question of the day – Who, at 2 goals up with only approximately 30 minutes played, would go down unfairly and beg for the penalty, especially in Fabiano’s position where he had already got around the keeper and just needed to softly touch it into the net? No one, well at least not Fabiano, he did get knocked and even the slightest knock when travelling at full speed is enough to knock anyone down, especially if it is from behind like it was in this scenario. It’s complete bullshit and as you know it, this was the turning point in the match. No, my rant isn’t over. OK, I understand that diving or “simulation to gain an unfair advantage” is against the rules of the game and results in a yellow card being given out but then why wasn’t Navas given one in the second half when he went down “softly” in the Valladolid box? What about Canobbio when Squillaci won the ball off him in the box and the ref told him to get up? Why weren’t these yellow card worthy but Fabiano’s was? What warrented this? Once again, REDICULOUS.

From this point on Valladolid obviously had the advantage as we were down to 10 men. Before the half time whistle could be blown González scored off a header which was also poorly defended by both Konko and Squillaci.

Some more bad news as Duscher was replaced at half time by Fazio after complaing about terrible discomfort while he was running in the first half. Things only got worse when Sesma’s original shot took a funny bounce off Escudé which in turn made Palop go the wrong way and then Canobbio fairly easily put it in to level the game at 2 goals each. Once again, the misery and pain was not over as in the 63rd minute, Fernando Navarro fouled Pedro León and up stepped Canobbio to score an absolute GOLAZZO way out of the reach of Palop in the top right hand corner which hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced in.

Navas as I noted earlier had an appeal for a penalty late in the match. Personally I think he went down rather easily, but if this was the case then why not a booking to go along with his simulation? Luis Fabiano’s red card, unless successfully appealed will mean once again that we are without any out and out strikers and will be forced to play Renato up top with Romaric for our UEFA Cup clash on Thursday when we travel to Belgium to take on Standard Liege (or Standard Lieja en Español) which will definitely be a make or break game, not in the sense of elimination, but if we do lose it will mean we have lost 3 consecutive games in 3 different competitions. We can’t afford to let our morale drop any lower and a win against Standard Liege will hopefully allow us to go back home with not only 3 points in the right direction for our UEFA Cup campaign, but also with high spirits when we play our fourth Andaluz derby this Sunday at El Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán against Recreativo de Huelva.