The day that a referee left Espanyol without Champions

BarcelonaAt Osasuna's field, Espanyol has celebrated safety and has mourned relegations, but in the white-and-blue popular imagination, the Sadar stadium is deeply linked to the name of a very high-profile referee: Eduardo Iturralde González. It has been more than 20 years since the episode that gave rise to his black legend among the periquito fan base; despite the passage of time, there is no Espanyol fan who does not remember him when their team competes in Pamplona. And this Saturday (16:15, Movistar+ LaLiga and DAZN), six days after the refereeing controversy against Sevilla, the Catalan side returns to visit the Navarrese capital to face Osasuna.

It was May 2005. It was the penultimate matchday of the League and Espanyol was immersed in the fight to finish in the top four. If they won at the Sadar, they would depend on themselves to achieve it. It was a historic opportunity to qualify to play in the Champions League for the first time in its history. Maxi Rodríguez scored the 0-1, but shortly after Alberto Lopo scored an own goal. Half an hour from the end, the action occurred that is still remembered today at the RCDE Stadium.

“We just couldn't believe it”

Maxi received the ball on the left flank and sent in a cross that Toni Velamazán converted into a goal by anticipating the Osasuna defense. But the assistant referee, Roberto Díaz Pérez del Palomar, raised his flag and Iturralde González immediately disallowed the goal. “We couldn't quite believe it. Even though there were no live images, it was very clear that it wasn't offside. When we saw the action repeated on television, we were very outraged. It is understandable that there might be mistakes in small margins, but this was very evident. Sometimes it makes you think the worst,” comments Àngel Morales to ARA, then a blue-and-white player. Although he was injured, he experienced the match live because, given the importance of the clash, the coach Miguel Ángel Lotina had the entire squad travel to Pamplona.

“We did enough to win. We even scored a goal that was legal. But we had the bad luck that the linesman made a mistake. I asked him why he had disallowed it and his response was blunt: ‘Yes, possibly I made a mistake’,” said Lotina after the match, which ended 1-1. While the parakeet coach was attending to the media in the press room at El Sadar, Velamazán was politely discussing the action with Iturralde González, who in the heat of the moment defended that Díaz Pérez del Palomar had seen it clearly and that it was offside.

A year later, when he met Velamazán again, the Basque referee admitted his mistake and apologized to him for the decision that left Espanyol out of the Champions League. The blue-and-whites finished the 2004-05 League in fifth place with 61 points, one less than Betis. “We had to settle for qualifying for the UEFA Cup,” says Morales with resignation.

Declared 'persona non grata'

Five years later, in an unprecedented statement, the Catalan Federation of RCD Espanyol Supporters' Clubs (FCPE), the main white-and-blue social agent, declared Iturralde González persona non grata for his "serious permanent errors always against Espanyol”, listing a series of decisions by the referee, which they considered erroneous, that had harmed the Catalan team: “The non-existent penalty kick called this Wednesday at La Romareda stadium, the one called at Camp Nou in the first half of the championship, the strange expulsion last year in Valencia of a player from our club when the score was favorable, or the deprivation of entering the Champions League by annulling a legal goal in Pamplona several seasons ago".

For all these reasons, the FCPE requested the Technical Committee of Referees that Iturralde González never referee Espanyol again. The request did not prosper, and before retiring, in 2012, he still refereed one more match for the Catalan team. More than 20 years after the mistake at El Sadar, his name remains closely linked to Osasuna's field in the periquito collective imagination and still resonates at Cornellà-El Prat, especially when a referee makes a decision that harms the white-and-blue team.