AS.com

Sergio Ramos turned to Twitter @sergioramos upon hearing about his four match ban for insulting the referee (in addition to a one match ban for an accumulation of cards, including last night's two yellow cards): "Independent of whether it seems fair or not to me, I'm sorry about the ban for my coaches, teammates and the fans. Hala Madrid!".

However despite his initial contriteness he was on the social network just 15 minutes later, with a somewhat bolder message. "I hope they are equally "strict and just" with the referees who make mistakes game after game", he tweeted.

This was in stark contrast to his actions last night, when he appeared to try to make up for lashing out at the referee in the wake of his sending off, when he called him a disgrace. First of all he apologised on Twitter, and even phoned the head of Referee's Technical Committee, in the hope that he could mitigate the punishment. All to no avail, and having initially apologised Ramos was once again on Twitter demanding tough action against any referee who makes a mistake.