Central American soccer is Crazy, too

Yes, I know that Mexico is considered North America. Just go with it, OK?

Last night, Mexico and Panama played to a 1-1 draw in the Gold Cup. If you were to judge from the ESPN Deportes (?) highlights below, you'd say this was a pretty run of the mill draw, with one little blowup on the sidelines.


But, as you will see below, you would be dead wrong.

First of all, the first half ended with a double red card. Giovanni Dos Santos was tackled by Armando Gun. Play went on as Gun clambered over Dos Santos. Dos Santos seemed to grab Gun's leg and Gun took exception and pushed the former Brazilian. At this point Luis Noriega comes in to play bouncer for Mexico. Both get red cards.



The real fun started around the 78th minute when Ricardo Phillips makes the mistake of dribbling along the touchline by Mexico's bench. Phillips, who had just come on in the 76th, took offense at Mexican manager Javier Aguirre kicking at the ball while it was still in play and shoved the sideline general.



As you can see, there was an immediate reaction from the Mexican bench, as well as the field players, against Phillips. The referee, Joel Aguilar of El Salvador, shows none of the uncertainty he displayed in handling the first half red cards and sends both Phillips and Aguirre off quickly. Well, at least Aguirre left quickly.



Don't have 10 minutes? Let me run that down for you. Phillips refused to leave the pitch. Panamanian team officials tried to get him off. No dice. Security tried to get him to leave. Phillips starts to go off, then comes back on the pitch. The referee looks like he is going to abandon the match, only for the CONCACAF match commisioner (and other men and women in suits) to come on the pitch and seem to force Aguilar to restart things. Finally, after almost 10 minutes, Phillips goes off the pitch. His reward--a shower of bottles, trash and who knows what else from the largely pro-Mexico crowd in Houston.

That wasn't the end of the fun, though. About four minutes into added time, Perez, the Panamanian goal scorer, is stretchered off with a time-wasting injury. Once on the sideline, he also gets the full trash shower treatment from the crowd. This time Aguilar truly looked to just abandon the match only to have the CONCACAF suits march out on to the pitch again and tell him to finish things.



Finally, after 10 and a half minutes of added time, Aguilar mercifully gets to blow for full time. His reward? Immediately being surrounded by Mexican players and coaches, seemingly arguing that he did not give enough injury time.



Surely there will be some blowback from all of the drama in this game, but no announcements have been made at this time. Fingers crossed for Mexico being thrown out of the tournament and the country, yes?

One last thing. Initially, I thought Aguirre was simply trying to stop a ball that was out of bounds so his team could get the quick throw in. After watching this video, I'm no longer sure.