Who needs tickets?

Watching my beloved Costa Rica team losing to rival Mexico was sad and at the same time left a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I expected Costa Rica to win it all, but I was hoping for a good showing, which never happened. They stunk in every single game they played, even in that Guadaloupe win.

Same old story - we can’t make it past US or Mexico; no excuses. I’m used to it by now, and realistically, with our mentality and the shady governing of the National Soccer Federation, I don’t see our soccer moving at a level above the two North American teams.

As far as Mexico, they haven’t played any better than Costa Rica either. They are probably the biggest disappointment of the tournament. With soccer great Hugo Sanchez in charge, and a number of players with vast European soccer experience, it was a given that Mexico was going to run over rivals without a sweat…wrong!

There isn’t any chemistry among the players. Individually, the players look good on paper, but they haven’t showed it as a team on the field ever since Sanchez took charge. Going back to the game, it was a mediocre game. Costa Rica trying to counterattack Mexico whenever possible with more emphasis on maintaining a defensive wall to try to suffocate Mexico.

Desperation was shown in the Mexican players as minutes went by, and as the game went on, Costa Rica found several scoring chances. Early on, Costa Rica did a good job keeping Mexico from creating scoring opportunities, while causing trouble on Mexico’s right side of their defense. Allan Aleman, Costa Rica’s mighty mouse, was the one player being aggressive and giving a headache to Mexico’s defense.

The defining moment of the game, I believe, was Aleman’s unfair ejection in the first half. The American referee was clearly not a good choice to handle a game of this nature. From the beginning he seemed shook and not ready for such responsibility. A man down and without their most active offensive player, Costa Rica became more defensive and scoring chances were limited. Mexico, at the same time, was a little more aggressive, but they were not efficient in anything they tried to do.

A couple of clear chances in the second half but without any concrete results. Once again, the ref became a major player when he hastily gave Costa Rican forward Saborio a red card for “head butting” a Mexican defender. Replay clearly shows that the Mexican defender Rodriguez stood up and came to confront Saborio who said something to him. Saborio made a slight head butt move, without even touching Rodriguez, but once again, the ref makes a terrible decision and sends off Saborio. Costa Rica is now decimated and unable to compete with two men down. The game was very physical from the beginning, and at this point it became even uglier.

Soccer was definitely not played in this game. I think most people can agree with me that this was the worst game of the Gold Cup so far. For two such experienced teams who have been in the past two World Cups, they owed the fans and the sport a much better showing. And to top things off, the referee was the worst we’ve seen in years. I mean, he should not be allowed to handle international matches. And don’t say this because of the 3 red cards (2 unfairly) handed to Costa Rica.

I’m talking about overall performance, he couldn’t even run the field so that he wouldn’t interfere with the action. A couple of times we saw him in the way of Mexican players trying to make a play. He seemed confused throughout the game. He even came to the bench ref to double check to see if a player had already a yellow card. I mean, this is something he should keep track of. Come on!

Towards the end of the game he handed one of the Costa Rican players a yellow card after a good foul, but then turned around and showed the player a red card. The player was in disbelief, and the whole Costa Rican team started to complain. The ref thought the player already had a yellow card and came back to the bench referee to check again. After further examination, the verdict was that he did not have a yellow card, so the ref took back the red card given.

I think it’s safe to say that this ref is done with the Gold Cup, and we will not be seeing him in the near future. Costa Rica finished the game with 8 players and could no longer sustain Mexico, which ended up winning the game in extra time with a header by Javier Borgetti.

The semifinals are being played this Thursday. Mexico takes on Guadaloupe. US against Canada.
Let’s just hope the overall performance of everyone involved in this tournament improves. The fans and the sport deserve it!