For the fourth game in a row, Alajuela star Rolando Fonseca led his team to victory Sunday afternoon, racing between defenders to score the only goal of the game, this time against La Brujas of Escazu. The win was an important one because none of the other leaders in the First Division advanced a single meter.

Heredia and Saprissa wound up in a scoreless tie, as did Cartago and Puntarenas. Meanwhile Perez Zeledon was beating San Carlos 1-0 and Carmelita dumped Santos 3-2.

The Heredia-Alajuela confrontation was a cautious affair with both teams playing tactics over aggressiveness, Saprissa perhaps to avoid a repetion of Wednesday’s bloodbath where they were battered by receiving three goals in four minutes. But the game was not without color—Heredia’s Jafet Soto, backing up for a better position, accidentally bumped into Saprissa’s Victor Cordero. The latter responded by a rude shove followed by a gratuitous blow to the back. Soto did not respond in kind.

Referee Ricardo Cerdas, who had not seen the interchange, responded to Heredia’s protests by consulting a linesman, whose eyesight apparently was no better than Cerdas’s, because the referee then tossed both players from the game, not just Cordero. (Ain’t no justice!)

As the leading daily La Nacion’s sportwriter observed, both players are veterans and their absence will hurt both teams at this crucial point. For Cordero, the aggression may have been a costly reaction to frustration at Saprissa’s poor showing so far this year.