KISSES

      The Salto Uruguay FC club, the strongest team in the Uruguayan league, had the weak National FC pinned against their goal. All Salta players, except the goalkeeper, pushed toward the rival goal, whose players had desperately crowded the goal after the tie they needed to avoid relegation that same afternoon in June 1991. A few seconds from the end of the match, a long ball miraculously found Salto striker Sergio Leon, who, taking advantage of the carelessness of the defenders, was one-on-one with the unprotected goalkeeper in the most auspicious goal situation of the entire match. The attacker measured his shot, calculated where he wanted to place the ball, and kicked, but his shot went totally off target. Relief pervaded all the Nacional players, especially the defender Edgard Olivera, who should have been León’s personal marker. Olivera approached his opponent and, in an extravagant demonstration of gratitude for what he considered a kindness, kissed his forehead. The rude gesture was noticed by the referee José Sequeira, who immpediately red-carded Olivera. Even with one man down, Nacional managed to escape the match with the tie. And even with the red card, Olivera celebrated, happy to have avoided relegation.

      Center d’Esports L’Hospitalet needed a win against Unió Esportiva Figueres so as not to plunge to the bottom of the Spanish Second Division B. The Catalan club was close to achieving it on the afternoon of November 7, 1998, thanks to a goal from Peri Ventura, but the referee Carlos Clos Gomez granted a dubious penalty kick to the visiting team, which equalized the score and muted the Estadi de la Feixa Llarga. Ramón Moya, the hosts’ manager, was desperate, and it was no wonder: He had only one victory in six games at home. However, after playing three minutes of additional time, with the draw seeming certain, a cross to the area found the head of defender Diego Martin, and he in turn found the net to pull L’Hospitalet ahead. The crowd—and Moya—erupted, and Moya torpedoed toward his bench to hug his assistants. Suddenly, the assistant referee Carmelo Bernat and the coach of the other team appeared in front of Moya, and. who knows why, stamped a huge kiss on his cheek. Bernat, perplexed, only managed to raise his flag to call Clos Gomez. After listening to the story of his collaborator, the referee took out his red card and ejected the affectionate man from the mach. After the game, when handing in the report, Clos Gómez described the kiss as “inappropriate.” For Moya, however, it was different: “it’s much better to do that than to throw stones at the referee or insult him.” “The heart goes crazy sometimes, and I just can’t control it,” acknowledged the friendly and passionate coach.

      Alessandro Veronese, scorer of the Italian team ASD Calcio Battaglia Terme, demonstrated why he had the reputation as a pickup artist in October 1996. In a match against La Rocca Monselice, played on the field of Via Reinaldi during the Veneto regional tournament, Veronese scored the second goal—and his second that afternoon—for his team with a powerful shot from 100 feet, which put the score at 2 to 1. To celebrate his double, the “artigliere” took off his blue-and-yellow shirt and hurled it. As he had already received one yellow card that day, the referee Anna de Toni showed Veronese another yellow and then the red card. The striker was astonished and, before leaving the field, approached the ref, shook her hand and gave her two kisses, one on each cheek. This action was written down by De Toni in her report, which was brought up to the Disciplinary Tribunal. After analyzing the case, the council disqualified the striker for two games, one more than what was usual for the consecutive yellows. In its resolution, the court determined that “the unusual act of trust toward the referee must be considered contrary to the regulation and punished with a day of suspension.” A coherent failure: two goals, two cautions, two kisses, and two matches’ penalty.

      Veronese’s punishment was light, if you compare that with the one received by his Dutch colleague Martin Bennink, although it should be noted that this gentleman kissed the referee on the mouth! Bennink, defender of the SV Wilhelminaschool’s amateur squad of the city of Hengelo, was red-carded for vehemently protesting the referee’s decisions and insulting him. “When they fuck with me, I like to kiss a lot,” Bennink justified himself after planting one on the man in black’s mouth. The Disciplinary Tribunal sentenced him to a suspension of eight matches for exercising “physical violence” and “assault on the dignity” of the referee.

      The Spanish journalist Sergi Mas assures us that, in the 70s, the stadium Los Cármenes de Granada C.F. was the scene of a curious situation. Just after the game started between the home team and Real Madrid CF, the referee approached the coach of the host team and ejected him from the field. “Onto the street,” said the man in black to the astonished coach, who had not insulted or committed any fault against anyone. The dizzying arbitrary decision was, in part, due, like the preceding stories, to passionate kisses. Although, in this case, between the coach and the wife of the referee. The ref took advantage of his investiture to take revenge on the person responsible for his having been made a cuckold. On returning to his house, the deceived used his red card again, but this time to throw his wife out of the bedroom.