This Tuesday is the last ‘Itu … what? of 2021 and, to make it even more special, we have asked that the questions to our referee, Iturralde González, come from colleagues in the newsroom who have nothing to do with the Sports section. Carles Francino, Aimar Bretos, Mara Torres, Roberto Sánchez, José Antonio Marcos, Javier del Pino and Héctor de Miguel leave their questions in the office normally occupied by SER Deportivos listeners. Don’t miss their answers!

Hi Itu, I’m Carles Francino, a retired footballer and a frustrated referee. When I left football, I didn’t want to be a coach, I wanted to be a referee. My question is: Why are there such disparate criteria with inputs that are practically the same? Could you quantify that subjectivity applied by the referees in a percentage?

It’s complicated. There are referees who believe that they can control a football game without cards and others who impose their authority with cards. The one who imposes his authority with the cards does not have much experience as a referee. Then … it’s all very subjective. The 17 rules of the regulation are interpretable rules. Of course, I think Francino would have been a worse referee than a journalist, sure (laughs).

Hi Itu, I’m Aimar Bretos, how are you? With an influence as authoritarian as yours, did not a moment of rebellion from a player generate sympathy for you?

It’s true. This is one of my biggest contradictions. I consider myself an anarchist, I like anarchy. And then he was a referee, the one who enforces the law on a soccer field. I think that’s why the players that I got along best with are the most antitodo: the Mostovoi, Karpin … I got along with them wonderfully. What’s more, I’m going to tell you one thing. We, the referees, always or almost always did a small tournament and I was almost always expelled. Being a referee, he was anti-referee. It is my contradiction.

Hello everyone, how are you? Happy Holidays. I am Mara Torres. Whenever I listen to Iturralde in SER Deportivos I think he has answers for everything. Iturralde, I would like you to tell me what is behind death (laughs). No, seriously, I want to know when you say ‘this is life’. A giant kiss.

This is life? You think that in the situation in which you do not ask or wish for anything, that is living. That desire of ‘I want this, I want the other’ … when you reduce that to the minimum is when you live the longest. What is there after death? I’ll explain it to you, Mara. It’s a bit philosophical. We are living death. We have been bad in another world and we are living death in life. If the great Mara asks me and I answer.

Hello Itu, I am Roberto Sánchez. As I was lucky to get to know you a little more one summer at La Ventana in which I invited you to play music in the afternoons, give me a transition theme from 2021 to 2022.

I’m going to tell you, like that, that to end this 2021 I’m going to put Cry Baby, by Janis Joplin.

Hi Itu, I’m José Antonio Marcos, I don’t think we know each other. What do these Christmas dates mean to you? And what about the April Fools? Is it sustainable or do you think it doesn’t make sense?

I don’t like April Fools. I like jokes outside of this April Fool’s Day. Christmas … I think that every day I am more asocial. Anyway, I start reading again ‘Thus spoke Zaratrustra’ and I go to the mountain (laughs). But it seems that we live in a stage in which, if you don’t do what one wants, it annoys the rest. If people are okay getting together with family, great, let them do it. You have to let people live. The offended don’t let people be happy. Each one has happiness where it likes.

Hi, I’m Javier del Pino. I have a curiosity. I do not know if it happens to the referees as it does to all professions. I, for example, read a newspaper and I can’t help saying ‘this is wrongly told’. If you see someone sneak into a bus … Do you say something to him? Do you go through life calling fouls?

Nerd. I leave them. I am not one of those who attracts attention unless it is something very blatant. We live in the speed, in the immediacy … If it sneaks in, let it sneak in.

Very good Iturralde, I am Héctor de Miguel, host of Hora Veintipico. The first related to the insults to the referees. I want to know what insult you heard in a field and you found it funny. And then, in another vein, I wanted to know your favorite Christmas recipe and if you cook it or are a scrubber.

Mine is monkfish stuffed peppers. The insult … the one I liked the most was a first division player who told me ‘you know that in life you have to improve, but you are still just as bad as last year’. Another was whistling in regional, the one who insulted me would be 30 years old and I 15 at that time, he told me two things that I did not know what they were and I expelled him. ‘If you don’t know what I told you,’ he told me. And I told him it was true, that is why I was expelling him. What I do not forgive Héctor de Miguel is that he sat in my place one day when I was absent from Carrusel. That is the Itu-site. Nobody occupies it.