Funny people, officials eh?
I mean, whilst the players are being instructed to ‘respect’ them at all costs, it’s something that seems to be getting harder and harder to do in the face of some of their decisions. Whilst some of them can seem to have the sort of game where even the St.John’s lot complete with stretcher on the pitch wouldn’t alert them to the need for a free-kick to be given, there’s also the others, who regard a whistle in their mouth and a card in their hand as some kind of permanent extension of their body.
So, judging by the extremes in decision making, it would be fair to suggest that some of them haven’t even scanned the FA rules, much less actually read them, whilst the meticulous few clearly examine every word each night under their duvets.
Unfortunately for Deco in our game against Roma, he met the latter.
Now, there is a case to be argued that if Deco hadn’t picked up an unnecessary yellow in the first half, then he wouldn’t have been skating on thin ice in the first place, however, I’d like to think the majority of refs have enough commonsense to remember these sort of details before brandishing a second.
Giving that much credit was a little excessive in Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo’s case though, because with Deco understandably eager – with us chasing the game – to take his free-kick early, the only advantage he gained was a night off work on 26th November. You see the Cantalejo, who was apparently even more keen to ‘do the job’ than our midfielder, brandished a second yellow card which sees Deco miss the next Champions League game against Bordeaux.
Of this decision, Deco stated “The problem was the moment he said just wait, I touched the ball. It was crazy. I don’t know why I was sent off. It was disappointing.”
That’s one word to describe it I guess!
Blue is the colour
