Mexico Hardly Electric in Tuneup

It was the sort of send-off that World Cup teams dream of receiving.

Singer/actress Pilar Montenegro, alone on stage in an electric blue outfit, belted out the Mexican national anthem as red, white and green “Tricolor” fireworks exploded over the Rose Bowl on Friday night to the delight of a crowd of 58,147.

After that, however, things turned somewhat sour.

Instead of producing the sparkling soccer of which it is capable, Mexico -- playing its last match on U.S. soil before leaving for the world championship in Germany -- floundered about for 45 scoreless minutes.

Fortunately, a gift goal from U.S. referee Terry Vaughn spared Mexican blushes. Coach Ricardo Lavolpe’s team scored off the penalty kick that had been generously and incorrectly awarded and went on to defeat Venezuela, 1-0.

Vaughn’s miscue -- the latest in a series of blunders by Major League Soccer officials in games involving Mexican teams -- came in the 57th minute when he ruled that Mexico’s Jesus Arellano had been fouled by Venezuelan defender Alejandro Cichero.

Television replays clearly showed that it was Arellano who sent Cichero tumbling to the ground with a shoulder charge as both chased the ball.

Vaughn turned a deaf ear to the South Americans’ protests, however, even dishing out a yellow card to one player, and pointed to the penalty spot.

Chivas de Guadalajara’s Omar Bravo stepped up and slammed the ball into the upper right corner past Venezuela goalkeeper Renny Vega from 12 yards to give Mexico the lead and, eventually, the win.

Venezuela fought back, but the calls failed to go its way at the other end of the field too -- one non-call causing Venezuela Coach Richard Paez to tear off his suit jacket and fling it to the Rose Bowl turf in disgust.

The game ended in a whimper. Whatever electricity had been there at the start had long since drained away into the night sky, Montenegro’s post-game concert notwithstanding.

Mexico is a much better team than it showed Friday night.

The highlight of Lavolpe’s tenure as coach came in 2005, at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany, when it defeated world champion Brazil, 1-0, and reached the semifinals.

Brazil started that game with seven of the players Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira this week said would start for the reigning world champions in their World Cup opener against Croatia -- including the attacking trio of Ronaldinho, Kaka and Adriano.

Despite that, Mexico managed to play the Brazilians to a standstill and emerged with a deserved victory thanks to a headed goal by Jared Borgetti.

Afterward, Parreira sang the Mexicans’ praises.

“They caused us a lot of problems with their fast passes on the ground,” he said. “And they were surprisingly good in defense.... There were three or four Mexicans around the ball all the time.”

On Friday, Lavolpe started only five players from that match, with three others on the bench. The fact that only half the starting 11 were on the field showed and the quality of play was poor.

Things improved somewhat in the second half when Lavolpe made five substitutions. One bright note for Mexico was the return of Brazilian-born midfielder Zinha, who had been sidelined for a couple of months after knee surgery.

He and Arellano managed to enliven the match somewhat, but Mexico was never in full stride.

With strikers Borgetti and Guillermo Franco still with their league teams in England and Spain, respectively, and with fellow forward Francisco Fonseca kept on the bench, Mexico failed to create many scoring chances.

Venezuela, to its credit, did not give Mexico time to play, but Mexico should have done better, although it did outshoot Venezuela, 14-7.

In the first half, the crowd twice thought Vaughn was slow to spot fouls in the penalty area, first when Jose Antonio Castro was bowled over by Venezuelan defender Jonay Hernandez and, just before the half ended, when Gerardo Torrado also crashed to the turf under Hernandez’s challenge.

Both times Vaughn waved play to continue.

Then, when the referee did make a call, it turned out to cause even more controversy.