A Red Weekend For Football  

This weekend, refs all over Europe seemed intent on making sure all the marquee matches were interupted by some questionable calls that, in most cases, put a damper on the match! As a fan of beautiful football (Joga Bonito) I was infuriated at some of the poorest reffing I have seen on any one weekend in my life.

In a game that promised some good football, even with Madrid's poor form of late, it didn't disappoint with some great end to end football where Robben and Van der Vaart proved why they are on one of the biggest teams of European football. Higuain's goal was a brilliant strike with the outside of his left foot after a cutting run by Robben. Valencia stormed back but couldn't bulge the onion bag and when Marchena was sent off for a second yellow all momentum shifted and the game lost the passion it had.

A scintillating game of football that was cut short by one of the most questionable sending offs I have ever witnessed. When Adebayor was given a second yellow for a 50-50 challenge in the air, it was like all the air was punched from the game. Plaudits must go to Arsenal for keeping up their attacking football but Liverpool were disappointing yet again and failed to win for the fourth time in five matches.

It was the final match in the gauntlet of death for Barcelona and after going down a goal after a sub par performance in the first half they bounced back to score twice, clinching a sweep of the other top four teams in La Liga. Not before the ref, Carlos Gómez could put his stamp on the game. A second yellow card for Pique for another 50-50 challenge in the air in which nothing untoward happened but the forward, Guille Franco going down as if shot.

Chelsea's hopes of continuing their incredible away record were hit hard at the 35th minute of the match when John Terry saw a straight red from ref Philip Dowd. The challenge was questionable as was the decision but that ruined what was sure to be an entertaining game. Did Phil Dowd stop there? No, he continued along his power trip to give three Chelsea players yellow cards because they questioned his decisions (something that happens in every Premier League game I have seen this season). The best one though was when, on a Ballack free-kick the wall was obviously not 10 yards away and the Chelsea players asked Phil, yet again, for 10 yards. He proceeds to walk 9 of his short steps and profess that it was 10 yards and then he carded Ballack for arguing. Chelsea held on valiantly with 10 men and it was a well-deserved draw for them, no thanks to Mr. Dowd.

So, while there was still quality football to be had in all of these games, it was significantly reduced due to the referees. I believe the ref's job is to keep control of the play and in that case none of the red cards given were desperately needed.