No Era Penal(It Wasn’t A Penalty) by Samuel Lopez Gress

Soccer is a sport that will either have you at the edge of your seat, biting your fingernails,
as you wish and pray your team wins or will you have you bored to death because both your
team and opposing team cannot seem to do anything but pass the ball around. So a game you
want to watch are the ones you anticipate weeks before and mark down each day before the
game in your calendar and sometimes just sometimes that game will be remembered forever.
Those are the games that will have you talking about them months even years after the game has
happened and the criteria the soccer game has to have in order to be one of those games are
amazing saves from the goalkeepers, dirty and clean fouls from the defense, incredible goals
from the forwards, and well the most dreaded but necessary element is a game changing call
from the referee that changes the whole outcome of the game. And on January 29, 2014 round
16 of the world cup in Brazil in the stadium Castelao Fortaleza at exactly at 1:00 p.m; Mexico vs
Holland faced off (Fifa,2014) and that game was probably the most controversial game of the
world cup. This game was filled with all the criteria that a memorable game needs and this game
even broke all the hearts of the thousands of Mexican fans at the stadium and the millions more
watching at home.

The whole game was nerve wrecking from start to finish. The goalkeeper for Holland
Jasper Cillessen did not have a very busy afternoon until the 48th minute when Giovani Dos
Santos broke the Mexican team free and they took the lead. The millions of Mexicans watching
at home and those thousands watching at the stadium were witnessing history and maybe just
maybe the possibility of Mexico getting past the round 16 was in the air. After the goal Mexico
completely dropped into defensive mode which in my opinion was a terrible mistake because
after Holland took the offensive and just kept on bombarding Guillermo’s Ochoa goal but he did
not let the Dutch pass. He was like a brick wall that the Dutch team could not break. Until the
88th minute when Wesley Sneijder got the rebound of a corner and just blasted Ochoa’s goal
with a volley just inside the 18. And Ochoa just simply did not even have a time to react it was a
bullet he did not see coming.

But the Dutch did not completely shatter Mexican dreams. The score was a tie (1­1) and it
was the 90th minute but there was still six more minutes of extra time and it was the longest
most gut wrenching four minutes to watch. Everything seemed like the game was going to head
into overtime. When out of nowhere Arjen Robben breaks through the Mexican defense and is
about to cut in to center the ball when Rafa Marquez steps in to take the ball but Van Persie takes advantage of this and acts like he just got stepped on and literally fakes a foul inside the box. And all you hear is the ref blow his whistle… When a foul is committed inside the box by the
defending team, the attacking team is awarded a penalty which is a direct shot to the goal only 12
yards out. Which is incredibly difficult to save for a goalkeeper. The next minute was a
nightmare for Mexican fans. Klaas Jan Huntelaar steps up for Holland to take the penalty and he
waits for the refs whistle and shoots.. Ochoa dives to the opposite side and the Dutch scores and
they take the lead. The remaining two minutes of extra time ends and the Mexican players drop
to their knees in tears and in disbelief: the Dutch have won.

The referee committed a terrible mistake. He awarded a penalty to a foul that was never
committed. The Dutch completely shattered all the dreams of every Mexican fan watching at
home and at the stadium.

The whole game itself was completely, just completely amazing. It was nerve wrecking
from start to end. Both teams were at each others toes the whole game.The Dutch with 48
dangerous attacks and 14 attempts, Mexico with 29 dangerous attacks and 12 attempts, the Dutch with eight shots on goal, Mexico right behind them with seven (Fifa,2014). And both teams were not just attacking they were also defending with tackles from both sides trying to recover the ball and both keepers trying their best to keep the ball out from the back of the net. This game was just what people were asking for. It had all the ingredients for an amazing game and even though Mexico lost by that penalty, everyone I mean everyone: Dutch fans and Mexican fans knew that it was not a penalty!