Mexico Advances to Nation’s League Finals after defeating Costa Rica in Penalties
Mexico’s summer of action is officially on as they had their first official tournament game today against Costa Rica. In front of a crowd of 34 thousand fans, Mexico jumped onto the field in Denver’s Mile High Stadium to battle for a spot in the CONCACAF Nations League final. Earlier in the day, USA had won a tight 1-0 game against Honduras for their spot in the championship game. Now it was Mexico’s turn to do the same.
Tata Martino and Mexico jumped on the field with a solid core of players, most notable among them being Chucky Lozano and Edson Alvarez. The game was chippy from the start, with the referee allowing the players to play on. During post-game interviews Chucky himself questioned whether this was the correct decision by the referee as he was the recipient of the majority of the fouls. Aside from the rough game, Mexico wasn’t able to shutout the game in regular time although they had a few opportunities to do so. Towards the end of the game, a brief fracas between Mexican and Costa Rican players threatened to end badly for Mexico but again the referee left it at just a disturbance. The fans also affected the end of the game, as the now infamous homophobic chant reared its ugly head again, forcing the referee to briefly halt the game. When the game returned, nearly a minute afterwards the referee ended the second half with the score being 0-0. Due to tournament rules, after 90 minutes of regular play the game went directly into penalty kicks. Here things didn’t start well for Mexico as Uriel Antuna would miss his shot. Fortunately for fans, after 6 more kicks, both teams were tied and so, who else, but Guillermo Ochoa stepped up to stop the final kick to give Mexico the win.
Mexico and fans suffered in this game and up next will be the final against a team USA that also suffered in their respective game. That game will be played Sunday June 6th at 6pmPST on TUDN. Be sure to follow El Tri Online on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date on all your Mexico National Team news!
