Monday Morning Offsides

Every Monday in La Liga, whether it be the Madrid press or the Barcelona press since there is no difference, there is always one article concerning either referee interference or a vaguely off-side goal to consider.

If you read them as often as I do, you would think that the refereeing in Spain, either from the head ref or from the linesmen, is one of the worst in the world. Well it's pretty bad, I'm not going to defend them all that much, but certainly not to the extent that the Spanish media seem to be complaining about.

Look at the disputed David Villa goal from the Barcelona v Athletic Bilbao yesterday. The photo-montage of Alves on the bottom, a creative blending of three or more frames, shows a clearly offside Alves springing loose on an over-manned Bilbao defense to set-up an opportunistic Villa for the goal. It would be damning if it were true. It isn't. Look at the top image. It's is from the Canal+ feed, See anything different? Athletic defender Koikili is in line with Dani Alves enabling him for the opportunity at goal. As.com digitally removed Koikili completely from the frame to make the desired point evident. Why would they do that?

There is a certain element in the Spanish press, led on by certain editorial and political mandates, that will question and harangue every goal, every win and every trophy that FC Barcelona make just to prove that the blaugrana get unquestioned favoritism by the refs. It's called Villarato, a term signifying that favoritism just because the head of the Referee's Committee Angel Maria Villar is a closet cule. What it does is create a situation where the league is beholden to either the Empire or the Rebellion; if you would allow me to use Star Wars terminology. No matter who you are facing, everything is manipulated to fit into that us against them motif? Penalty given? Villarato. Dive in the box? Villarato. Offsides? You guessed it: Villarato. It's not just the Madrid press either. The Barcelona papers still talk about the centralist government's support of Real Madrid, sort of the opposite of Villarato, the idea that the league still offers direct favoritism to los blancos decades after the death of Francisco Franco.

Sorry, but I support a club that doesn't buy into either of those ideals. This isn't a league of two. This isn't the Harlem Globetrotters. It's high-time people started realizing that they are being manipulated into this us versus them mentality. There is no Villarato, there is no favoritism, other than the idea that both giants, both greats in the duopoly that runs Spanish football, get breaks that cripple the fates of all other clubs in Spain.

**As an addendum: this morning As.com published a retraction of their original piece, with this picture, calling it unfortunate, they added their apologies and their restored picture with a restored Koikili, with a caption that the defender "could possibly be in line" with Alves, and yet the line clearly shows that Alves is still offside. The implication is that even with the correction that their original statement is true even though they were caught in a half-truth. Well, look at the entry ball. It's a foot and a half or more off the ground in front of Xavi.