"Take great care of Gil Manzano." "Mateu Lahoz is better now with Leo Messi". “Bengoetxea is very close to Burgos”. "Fernández Borbalán is permissive with small faults, which harms Barça". All these phrases appear in the arbitration reports included in the summary of the Negreira case. A robot portrait of the most prominent members of the period investigated (2016-2018), some of them still active, is included in the sea of pages on the matter.
In most cases, these are features that any average fan can perceive from watching two or three games. In other words, as the late Josep Lluís Núñez would say, almost even his goalkeeper could know what type of arbitration one or another collegiate used to practice.
According to the summary, in May 2016, before the dispute of a derby between Barcelona and Espanyol, the reports stressed that Jesús Gil Manzano from Extremadura was “the referee with the greatest projection in Spanish football. It is interesting to take great care of the club's relationship with him because of his high level and youth. He will referee big games for many seasons. He has a clean, aesthetic style and away from authoritarian gestures ”.
It is curious that in practice Gil Manzano has been a referee much protested by Barcelona in recent seasons, since he has sent off Messi, Suárez, Neymar, Lewandowski and Piqué, the last two last November in Pamplona. . The studies also said that Gil Manzano made “mistakes on penalties by default”. It should be remembered that video arbitration was not applied then. The following year (2017) he was considered "well valued" but as "another international".
Another report analyzed the style of Mateu Lahoz, of whom it was noted that "he continually seeks personal contact with the players since he needs them to believe him and for this reason he gives too many explanations."
This is a question that any football fan already knows without having to be an arbitration expert, as the fans that Mateu lets play also know, a trait that was even more accentuated at that time than it is today.
"The players are recommended to follow all the plays, no matter how clear the fouls may seem, since they can become counterattacks if they are not whistled", it was written for the information of the leaders of FC Barcelona. With which they reached the following logical conclusion: "It is recommended to play noble but not aggressive and make more fouls than usual."
It is also said of Mateu Lahoz that “it is easy for Jordi Alba not to allow any protest or to immediately admonish Piqué or Mascherano. It is also common for him to stop pointing out fouls on Neymar. With Messi now he is better”.
Another of the monitored referees was De Burgos Bengoetxea (the one from last Sunday's classic), on the occasion of a visit to the Deportivo field in 2016. “He only points out what is very clear to him. He is very close and easy to deal with ”.
Of Fernández Borbalán, already a former referee now, it was remarked that "he was permissive with small fouls, which harms Barça".
