Sevilla 2 – Osasuna 1 – Hum…

By: Ryan | January 27th, 2008

Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.-White Men Can’t Jump

Now, you may ask why I’ve just quoted the single greatest basketball movie ever and my personal viewing the night before any big basketball game?

Sevilla won yesterday. That they certainly did, 2-1 over Osasuna.

But watching the game didn’t seem like a win to me.

More after the jump

This Sevilla team has changed, and yesterday I truly didn’t like what I saw (from the part of the game I saw). I can’t commentate on the part I didn’t see, and writing game re-caps is something I don’t enjoy, since I’m not a reporter. I’m a blogger, and I have this space to give opinion and to translate for the non hispanohablantes.

I got a text from my friend Mike (another Sevillista) right after dinner, asking if I saw the game. I said no and he replied that Luis Fabiano scored on a penalty in the 94th minute. I was happy, we had won.

But upon watching the last 20 minutes of the game, it was pretty disgraceful, for BOTH teams. Sevilla apparently have resorted to yelling at the ref all the time, and complaining every 2 minutes (and NO they did not do this before, so don’t try it). However, Osasuna were absolutly atrocious in hacking the living daylights out of each other. There were 13 yellow cards in all, (4 Sev 9 Osa) and 2 Osasuna players sent off with double yellows.

Needless to say, Iturralde González (the ref) had a rough go of it yesterday. The headline in MARCA read ‘Escandolo de Iturralde’ ‘Iturralde’s scandal’ Then a barrage of comments in MARCA’s comments section, where everyone yelled about Sevilla fans being ‘gitanos’ (literally gypsy, but a slang derogatory term if you call someone that in Spain) and also mocking Puerta’s death. I’ll just leave that be.

Today’s Headlines for the game read (translated)
‘Iturralde’s Scandal’ (AS)
‘Iturralde annhilates the little red ‘resistance’ (meaning Osasuna)’ (MARCA’
‘Iturralde gave Sevilla the victory’ (Sport)

So yeah, he’s a bit marked right now by the

The game came to a head when towards 90 minutes (I forget exactly when) Poulsen elbowed a player from Osasuna right in the mouth, without the ball anywhere near him. Then Sevilla kept playing on while the player was down on the ground, which is totally uncalled for. It was obvious the player was hurt, you have to play the ball out of touch.

Then, when it looked like the 1-1 draw was going to stand. Iturralde calls what was a questionable penalty at best in the box. Just hit the video and you’ll see it, plus the penalty converted by Luis Fabiano.

You can be the judge, and I’d actually be interested to see people’s comments on whether or not they think it’s a penalty. My understanding is that when it hits a player’s hand, in the box, it’s a penalty. You can see it does hit his hand, albeit not much of it. At that point in the game, you really can’t call that, but ‘fortunately’ for Sevilla, he did.

Luis Fabiano nails home the penalty (twice), the game ends and then we get to fist-a-cuffs on the field afterwards. In the end, both teams were separated by the police and the warm, fuzzy feeling had by all at the start faded away.

Now, back to my quote. A win is good, don’t get me wrong. But to win on a ‘questionable’ penalty and to see Poulsen knock that guy senseless and then not to stop play while he looked for his teeth on the ground was a bit disconcerting. Don’t get me wrong, I want to win, but not like that. Sure, now we sit in 7th place, but it was pretty anti-climactic.

On the same token, this happens all the time in football. How many times has your team been the beneficiary of a dubious ‘penalty’ call, or a blatant offsides. What are Sevilla going to say ‘No thanks Iturralde, it wasn’t a handball, we’ll give it back to Osasuna okay?’ Of course not, they are going to score.

And of course MARCA and AS will chalk it up as being a ’scandal’ and that Sevilla won ‘with a big help from the ref’. But when it happens to Madrid or Barca they leave it as ‘it was a questionable call’ or ‘it could have been a penalty’. Sitting on the fence for the big 2 and then saying ‘jodete’ to the little guys. (No I’m not crying Big Club-Small Club, but this IS how it goes, just look at the two papers and see for yourself.

I’m willing to bet you in the overall tally of being unlawfully screwed by a referee, every team is around 50% for and 50% against. So what, Sevilla got a win from a terrible penalty. This is the guy that royally dicked us over last year in La Liga. What goes around, comes around, and that ‘coming around’ took place last night against Osasuna.