{"id":45940,"date":"2025-07-07T12:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45940\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T12:18:08","slug":"mauricio-pochettino-rips-officials-after-controversial-handball-no-call-in-usmnts-gold-cup-loss-to-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/45940\/","title":{"rendered":"Mauricio Pochettino rips officials after controversial handball no-call in USMNT&#8217;s Gold Cup loss to Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. Men\u2019s National Team coach Mauricio Pochettino didn\u2019t mince his words when discussing a controversial no-call in the team\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/06\/sports\/usmnt-blows-early-lead-for-heartbreaking-loss-to-mexico-in-gold-cup-final\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CONCACAF Gold Cup final loss to Mexico on Sunday night<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The controversial play occurred in the second half of the match with the United States and Mexico even at one when defender Luis S\u00e1nchez made a play on American midfielder Max Arfsten.<\/p>\n<p>Sanchez\u2019s hand landed clearly on the ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But the play wasn\u2019t called a handball after \u200b\u200bmatch official Mario Alberto Escobar Toca turned to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), ruling that it was an incidental handball and the United States wouldn\u2019t get a penalty call in their favor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The decision didn\u2019t sit well with Pochettino, who sounded off after the match at NRG Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019s a penalty,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FOXSoccer\/status\/1942050190011375705\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> the USMNT coach told reporters.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cHe [Mexican defender S\u00e1nchez] put his hand over the ball. It\u2019s not that the hand was on the floor and the ball touched it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Luis S\u00e1nchez hits the ball with his hand during the Mexico-USMNT match on July 6, 2025.  X \/ @FOXSoccer<\/p>\n<p>Luis S\u00e1nchez hits the ball with his hand during the Mexico-USMNT match on July 6, 2025. <\/p>\n<p>Pochettino was likely talking about the rule that states a handball occurs when a player \u201ctouches the ball with their hand\/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Edson \u00c1lvarez went on to score the game-winning goal in the 77th minute when he headed the ball past U.S. keeper Matt Freese.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mauricio Pochettino looks on during the USMNT-Mexico match on July 6, 2025.  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The goal had originally been called offside, but after video review, it was determined to be a good goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chris Richards scored the United States\u2019 first and only goal of the night four minutes into the match and Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez scored the equalizer in the 27th minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Men\u2019s National Team coach Mauricio Pochettino didn\u2019t mince his words when discussing a controversial no-call in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[21491,221,62,67,132,68,33686],"class_list":["post-45940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-concacaf-gold-cup","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-us-mens-national-team"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114811915668554466","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}