U.S. Men’s National Team coach Mauricio Pochettino didn’t mince his words when discussing a controversial no-call in the team’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final loss to Mexico on Sunday night.
The controversial play occurred in the second half of the match with the United States and Mexico even at one when defender Luis Sánchez made a play on American midfielder Max Arfsten.
Sanchez’s hand landed clearly on the ball.
But the play wasn’t called a handball after match official Mario Alberto Escobar Toca turned to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), ruling that it was an incidental handball and the United States wouldn’t get a penalty call in their favor.
The decision didn’t sit well with Pochettino, who sounded off after the match at NRG Stadium.
“I’m not going to cry. I want to tell the truth. And the truth is if that happened in the opposite half, in the other box, for sure it’s a penalty,” the USMNT coach told reporters.
He added: “He [Mexican defender Sánchez] put his hand over the ball. It’s not that the hand was on the floor and the ball touched it.”
Pochettino was likely talking about the rule that states a handball occurs when a player “touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger.”
The moment became a crucial point in the match as the United States could have been in a position to take a lead in the second half.
Instead, Edson Álvarez went on to score the game-winning goal in the 77th minute when he headed the ball past U.S. keeper Matt Freese.
The goal had originally been called offside, but after video review, it was determined to be a good goal.
Chris Richards scored the United States’ first and only goal of the night four minutes into the match and Raúl Jiménez scored the equalizer in the 27th minute.
Mexico won its second consecutive Gold Cup title and its 10th all-time, while moving to 6-2 against the United States in the tournament final.
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