Courtney Campbell: Can Mexico Lose With Him as the Ref?
I haven’t had a chance to see the play — and knowing Honduras, a foul in the penalty area isn’t beyond belief — but Courtney Campbell has for the third time in three matches involving Mexico awarded Mexico a penalty kick. In each match, the game was tied 0-0 at the time of the call. This time it was a 73d minute penalty kick in Mexico’s World Cup Qualifier with Honduras.
We previously noted that Mr. Campbell, a member of our “Oh Crap, This’ll Be Fun” List, had awarded penalty kicks to Mexico in both of his first two Mexico matches (in the 2009 Gold Cup — against Haiti [handball] and the U.S. [foul, i.e. Dos Santos dive]). While this wasn’t an elimination match, it pitted two of the top three teams in CONCACAF qualifying.
And remember that Mr. Campbell is not generally a penalty kick awarder (he’s now issued only 5 in 36 matches.) But 3 of those 5 penalty kicks were awarded to Mexico. And each in a 0-0 match.
Maybe it’s a perfect coincidence, but if I’m Mexico and Campbell’s the referee, I would like my chances.
UPDATE: Here’s a video of the foul.
US Soccer by the Numbers 
If someone would have told me that Mexico beat Honduras 1-0 I think I would have predicted one of two scenarios by which they scored:
1) Blanco pretends to get shot, falls down in a heap, writhes around in pain, gets up three minutes later, and calmly slots a free kick into the top corner; OR
2) Gio runs into the box, pretends to get shot, writhes around in pain, gets up three minutes later, and then Blanco calmly slots a penalty into the top corner.
On the other hand, I don’t think I would have predicted “Rico pretends he’s Roberto Carlos” for the lone U.S. goal.
Can’t blame Mexico: if it works, keep doing it until the refs quit calling it.
As for Clark — I missed the announcement of the lineup and honestly didn’t know he was on the field until he scored. So the goal was a bit of a shock. Heck, I would have been only slightly more surprised to hear that Eddie Johnson had scored the first goal in that match.
Campbell is an idiot and should never be allowed to officiate a soccer match
we should wait til kickoff and then walk off the field and leave Campbell for the
fans from outlawsoccer