Garcia’s Penalty Kick Leaves Mexico and Ireland Tied, 2-2

Luis Garcia converted a penalty kick in the 70th minute as Mexico played with a man advantage for the final 33 minutes Wednesday night and tied Ireland, 2-2, before 21,322 in U.S. Cup ’96.

The tying goal came 13 minutes after Liam Daish received his second yellow card from American referee Raul Dominguez for failing to put the ball in play fast enough on a restart.

Reserve Irish forward Niall Quinn also was ejected after coming off the bench in the incident, and Irish coach Mick McCarthy was ejected two minutes later for entering the field to argue a yellow card issued to David Connolly.

Ireland took a 2-1 lead in the 50th minute. Mark Kennedy sent a long free kick into the penalty area, where Suarez headed the ball to teammate Dulio Davino. The ball bounced off Davino and past goalkeeper Osvaldo Sanchez.

Mexico scored the tying goal after Kennedy was called for shoving German Villa on the right side of the area.

“Our team is very young with short experience,” Mexico Coach Bora Milutinovic said. “To get this result against Ireland . . . we played excellently tactically.”

Mexico opened the scoring in the 40th minute when Francisco Palencia took a throw-in, beat his defender to the end line with two strides and cut a low crossing pass to Garcia, who beat Bonner with a shot inside the near post.

Ireland replied with less than a minute to go in the half, when Connolly took a pass from Kennedy and rolled a shot past Sanchez just inside the far post.