At the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the National Football Teams of Mexico and Panama played the most appalling and chaotic match in CONCACAF history, which in the end gave the Mexican team a berth to play in the final match of the 2015 Gold Cup against the Jamaican National Team.

The ugliness of the match was on display early on, when main referee Mark Geiger of the United States booked Mexican player Carlos Vela with a yellow card after a very clear elbow strike on a Panamanian defender. That play, which should have resulted in a red card, set off a very unfortunate chain of bad calls, which held up the match for several minutes, tarnished the gameplay, and nearly resulted in the Panamanian players walking off the pitch.

At the 25-minute mark, Mr. Geiger pulled a red card on star forward Luis Tejeda of Panama; another controversial call since it emanated from a play that is seen several times on just about every football match: two players vying for a headers pushing each other to get the best position.

The match was played with consternation by Panama and nervousness by Mexico. The North American team has far more talented players, but they could not create dangerous plays despite their possession of the ball. In fact, Panama was even closer to scoring in the first half.

In the second half, Roman Torres of Panama scored a header off a corner kick to open the scoreboard. Mexico retaliated with a few attacks that went nowhere. The match was not even physical at that point; Panama parked the bus and waited for the 90^th minute, which is when the worst of the match arrived: an alleged handball by Mr. Torres inside the box, which only Mr. Geiger saw and called a penalty kick, which was scored by Andres Guardado.

During a post-match interview, Mr. Guardado confessed that he thought about scuttling the penalty kick with a bad shot towards the sidelines; this feeling came from the previous match played against Costa Rica, in which a very similar situation ensued and left La Sele out of the Gold Cup, a moment of global indignation among football fans that even prompted President Luis Guillermo Solis to update his Twitter feed with: “That was not a penalty. It is not fair to win that way.”

As it happens, Mr. Guardado scored that ill-fated penalty kick against Costa Rica, and he would even kick another one last night during overtime: at the 104-minute mark, Javier Orozco, who had been invisible since he entered the match off a substitution, got tangled feet and fell inside the box during an attack against Panama. The frustration with Mr. Geiger was palpable in the entire stadium as he called another penalty kick in favor of Mexico, which Mr. Guardado once again executed.

Mr. Geiger left the pitch along with the sideline referees under heavy security escort. In the post-match conference, Mexican coach/manager Miguel Herrera did not look victorious; he was rather upset with the press and seemed very frustrated as he said:

We played a terrible game. We’re not happy. Sometimes you play your best and don’t win; tonight we played terrible and won. I can say to [Panama coach Hernan Dario Gomez] that it should not have been a penalty, but what can I do? It wasn’t our fault.

In the morning after the match, several Mexican news media outlets lamented the dismal match and questioned the value of reaching the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup finals in such questionable fashion. In the eyes of football fans, the dubious penalty kicks awarded to Mexico against Costa Rica and Panama have left a very bad taste.

Source: Radio Columbia 98.7 FM, Costa Rica