More than 70,000 football fans flocked to the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal match between the National Men’s Football Teams of Costa Rica and Mexico.

This was the third time these two national squads met in a Gold Cup match, and the pressure to win was quite high as the quarterfinals of this tournament are played in knockoff fashion. In the end, however, a very suspicious call by the main referee sealed the match.

Mexico (El Tri) started off the match with a few explosive attacks that tested the goalposts guarded by Esteban Alvarado. After 15 minutes of this dominance, Costa Rica (La Sele) took control of the ball and looked every bit like the team that surprised everyone in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Celso Borges, Joel Campbell and Johan Venegas were very close to scoring the first goal of the match; El Tri responded with a couple of dangerous counterattacks by Andres Guardado and Oribe Peralta.

Even though there were no goals score in the first half, fans were not disappointed as both Costa Rica and Mexico played what has been the best match of the Gold Cup thus far.

The second half started off with even ball possession and stronger defense by both teams. Mexico slowed down its attacks by starting plays from the midfield, and Costa Rica looked for opportunities to score on long passes. After about 20 minutes, Mexico began to dominate, but the high-octane first half began to weigh heavily on the players of both teams. The match was very physical, fast-paced and balanced, but no goals were scored in the first 90 minutes, which required overtime.

In the first 15 overtime minutes, Mexico clearly dominated with attacks by Jonathan Dos Santos, Miguel Ayun and Andres Guardado while Costa Rica seemed content with defending and saving energy. In the second half of overtime play, the Mexican players were physically spent; La Sele attempted to capitalize on this situation by launching a few attacks, including a spectacular offensive run by Joel Campbell that could have been the best goal of the Gold Cup had it not been for an even more spectacular save by Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.

The final play of the overtime was a highly controversial penalty kick awarded to Mexico on a non-existent foul inside the box, ostensibly by Roy Miller on Oribe Peralta at the 15-minute mark. Estaban Alvarado could not stop the shot by Guardado, and Costa Rica unfairly finished the Gold Cup it was supposed to win.

Minutes after the match, the penalty kick called by the referee in favor of Mexico was already being decried by football analysts in several sports media outlets, and one headline stood out: CONCACAF 1 – Costa Rica 0, an allusion to regional football business interests that tend to sway towards the National Teams of Mexico and the United States, which draw a high number of ticket sales and television ratings.