www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Costa Rica lost to Mexico 1-0 last night in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Mexico won on a horrible penalty call in the final minute of extra time. It was such a bad call that the CR fans in the stands threw bottles onto the pitch/field. Any reaction in CR?
The semi-finals on Wednesday will have Mexico vs Panama, and the US vs Jamaica.

Here's a link to a recap of the match...
http://www.espnfc.us/concacaf-gold-cup/ ... eam/report

Here's a link to a recap, including the horrible penalty call in the final minute of extra time (video of the penalty call starts at 1:18)...
https://youtu.be/GnoTd6-KG5c

Here's a longer video of the call (from different angles) and subsequent penalty shot, with live commentary...
https://youtu.be/MaSAa1V2Xjo

_________________
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

That is CONCACAF for you! If FIFA is riddled with corruption from top to bottom, CONCACAF is doubly so. Plus it has never had competent and professional refereeing, to give them the benefit of the doubt and not call them something worse.

Mexico was the better team on the field, however CR had managed to defend and extend the game to where it should have been decided via penalty shootout...the referee and linesman had other plans!

Life goes on!

Agreed, it was a terrible call. To makee it even worse, the player who did the great acting job to draw the penalty kick should have been kicked out of the match a few minutes earlier for an obvious try to injure but only drew a yellow card for it.

However, I have to say CR did NOT deserve to win that game. The offense is almost non-existent and the defense is a hollow shell of what it was a year ago in the World Cup.

Also tells you something when the #1 CR goaltender, Keylor Navas, preferred to play the first preseason match for Real Madrid (where is he now the #1 goalie) on Saturday instead of this Gold Cup match with CR on Sunday. Not sure he got over being benched for the first CR friendly against Colombia when he hadn't played much in the last year as the #2 at Real Madrid.

When you have a former player and now coach who has been around Costa Rican football for 20 years then a huge investigation begins that indicts/jails the President of the CR football foundation, makes you wonder the real reason that former player got to be coach in the first place. Perhaps because he knows where all the skeletons are really buried and can be trusted to keep his mouth closed??? And that is pure random speculation I hear on the streets here pretty often...

_________________
The only thing that matters is happiness in all it forms...

I didn't even know that Wanchope was the coach until about a week ago. The speculation that you mention may indeed be correct. I think the corruption may involve some CR politicians in very high places. As you alluded to, one of the FIFA officials recently indicted is Eduardo Li, from Costa Rica.
Why in Hell would FIFA award the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and to Qatar in 2022 It's all about the money. I hope Blatter and all his cronies end up in prison. I'm surprised the indictments didn't occur years ago.

_________________
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile, and the rest of us are phucked until we can put our acts together; not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely"...Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

Don't be surprised if many politicians in the big soccer countries, as well as the not so big ones, are involved in the dirty deeds...most countries don't have the resources, nor the interest, to pursue a complex and expensive case such as this one against FIFA. Well, guess what, the USA, where football not soccer is by far the number one sport, did! The Attorney General's office blindsided all these cartel crooks and nabbed them when they least expected, in Switzerland (including CR's very own chino Li).

We'll have to be patient to see what comes out of all of this...don't hold your breaths, but it looks like it is for real

too bad they dont use instant replay, especially in these tight games.
mexico was definitely the superior soccer team, but costa rica was the scrappier team .

the bad part was that the girls were all depressed after the game for a while.

_________________
Having too much fun. 8)