Here's an understatement: Refereeing has been a major flashpoint during the 2015 Gold Cup.
Thanks to any number of missed or controversial calls, the men in the middle have been on the hot seat this month. Perhaps that's why CONCACAF turned to veteran Salvadoran ref Joel Aguilar to handle Sunday night's tournament final between Mexico and Jamaica.
While you could quibble with a few of his decisions – namely, the ones that allowed both sides to finish with all 11 players after some rash challenges – most observers were content with Aguilar's measured approach to a match that El Tri won comfortably.
But deep down, even the most unflappable refs have adrenaline coursing through their veins just like the players they officiate. And Aguilar's intensity got the better of him as he took the measure of a Mexican wall that formed for a first-half Jamaica free kick.
How else to explain his...premature application, shall we say, of the vanishing spray used to restrain the wall? A slip of Aguilar's finger deposited a dose of disappearing foam on the jersey of Mexican defender Francisco “Maza” Rodriguez, and gave us something to chuckle about long after the confetti and champagne had been cleaned up at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
Add in a Ginuwine backing track, and the jokes write themselves, don't they?
