Disputes Rage as Qualifying Ends
Soccer’s regional qualifying for the Athens Olympic Games ended in controversy Thursday night as the United States accused CONCACAF of changing the rules mid-tournament and CONCACAF responded by admitting it had them wrong from the start.
On top of that, Mexico won the eight-nation event in similarly dubious circumstances, beating Costa Rica, 1-0, in overtime, on a penalty kick that should never have been awarded.
The first controversy had to do with player eligibility, and the U.S. was its first victim.
Coach Glenn “Mooch” Myernick was told just hours before the U.S. team’s third-place match against Honduras that he could not play Galaxy defender Ricky Lewis. As a result, the Americans, already short-handed, had only two available substitutes on the bench.
They held on for a 1-1 tie after two hours of play, only to lose, 4-3 on penalty kicks, as Logan Pause and Brad Davis saw their attempts saved by Honduras goalkeeper Donis Escobar.
The championship match was similarly affected by CONCACAF’s botching of the rules.
Mexico was forced to play without its most dangerous player, midfielder Luis Ernesto Perez, and Costa Rica had to do without midfielder Jose Luis Lopez and defender Junior Diaz.
Under the initially announced rules, yellow cards from the first round were not supposed to be carried over into later rounds.
But on Thursday, the final day of the 10-day tournament, CONCACAF told the teams that yellow cards did carry over and that the four players were ineligible.
“We found out today from CONCACAF that all of a sudden the rules of the tournament had changed,” a visibly angry Myernick said during his postgame comments. “And we found out today that we had a player [Lewis] suspended.
“We were led to believe that the rules of the tournament were that if you had a yellow card in the first round, it [was cleared] as you went into the second round. We were informed today, an hour and a half before leaving the hotel, that all of a sudden the rules had changed.
“So you can talk to the appropriate people about that.”
Steve Torres, CONCACAF’s spokesman, declined to translate Myernick’s remarks into Spanish for the majority of the media that was present.
“Translate it for them,” Myernick told him. “You translated all the other questions for them. Translate that one.”
Torres again declined, then was asked what CONCACAF’s explanation was for the faux pas.
He said that it had been because of a difference in interpretation of the “disciplinary rules between FIFA and CONCACAF” and that “as soon as the interpretation was corrected, the teams were informed.”
Asked whether players other than Lewis were affected, Torres said: “It affected Costa Rica with two players ... as well as the captain of Mexico.”
In point of fact, the captain of Mexico, Diego Martinez, played the entire final and scored the game-winning goal. It was Perez who was suspended.
Whether any of the teams will file formal protests was unclear Thursday night.
Costa Rica’s players certainly protested the penalty kick awarded by Jamaican referee Victor Stewart eight minutes into sudden-death overtime that cost them the title.
Costa Rica’s Pablo Brenes cleanly tackled the ball away from onrushing Mexican striker Rafael Marquez Lugo, who subsequently fell over him.
No matter, Stewart pointed to the penalty spot and Martinez beat goalkeeper Adrian De Lemos with the resulting kick.
Even Mexican television commentators, however, agreed that no foul had been committed.
The U.S. also was the victim of a questionable penalty kick. After Alecko Eskandarian had given it the lead in the 50th minute, Salvadoran referee Rodolfo Sibrian ruled that Jose Burciaga had tripped Honduras’ Wilson Palacios and Emil Martinez tied it up in the 76th minute.
“I didn’t think it was a PK,” Burciaga said, “because he hit my shoulder. I didn’t stick my leg out” to trip him.
