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You Can't Spell Pumas Without PU - Honduran Announcer Threatens Referee
Posted 19 Aug 2009 at 08:58 PM by John Jagou
Tags honduras, mexico, pumas, salvador nasralla
Some call it complacency, others the championship hangover. In Mexico it’s known as campeonitis. Whatever it is, it stinks. And it is being measured in alarming levels at Ciudad Universitaria, home to Pumas UNAM. The only remnant that you can see on the pitch of the team that won the previous tournament is the itty-bitty little star they added to their jersey. Everything else has been a complete disaster. The usually solid defense has made careless and costly mistakes. The forwards seem to think the goal is floating 20 yards above the field, and Tuca Ferretti is hopelessly trying to stop the bleeding. Any other team, and this guy would have been fired long ago (last week). There have been plenty of excuses, as always. A popular one was that they had key players on national team duty. One of last Wednesday’s heroes, Efrain Juarez, made a stirring and emotional return to CU by promptly getting a red card. Welcome Back.
Pre-seasons aren’t usually a telling barometer of what is to come. But Pumas was awful in the build up, conceding an obscene amount of goals. It hasn’t changed much 4 games into the league, and they have made up for it by not scoring. They currently sit in dead last place with a -8 goal differential. They finally put a ball into the opposing team’s net last week for their first goal in over 300 minutes of play. It was not enough.
Pumas will eventually right the ship. I hope And the reality of the Mexican Primera’s parity is that they can get hot enough to go from worst to first in about a month. The current table topper, Morelia on 10 points, can just as easily slide down the shoot over the next few weeks. Tomas Boy’s crew has been playing very well lately, which is very surprising when we take into account how young the team is. And coincidentally, Morelia was my pick to win it all. But only because I literally picked them at random.
Like last year, Tuca will be using the kids for the Concachampions. They responded with a less than convincing 1-0 win over an overly defensive Comunicaciones squad from Guatemala. I was hoping that some of these youngsters would make the most of their chance and eventually press the starters for some PT. Didn’t really happen. But considering how bad the first teamers are doing, he might as well use the kids in the local league as well.
Homer announcers don't bother me at all. Hey, I am even part of a very partisan crew that calls Longhorn football games in español. We may be biased toward the ‘horns, we may not call the other teams’ touchdowns with the same enthusiasm, and we may question decisions made by the referee, but we would never ever claim that the refs are thieves, in Texas’ pocket, or the Big 12 wants Texas out of the championship game, which is why that holding call nullified that last touchdown. And we certainly wouldn't threaten bodily harm.
Enter Honduran announcer Salvador Nasralla. He was not happy at all with FIFA's decision to have a Mexican ref, Marco Antonio Rodriguez, as the official for last week’s Ticos-Catrachos tilt. It was the third Honduras game in row with a Mexican ref. He believed that ref would influence the result in Mexico’s favor because Costa Rica was Mexico’s next opponent.
If there is a constant in footie, it’s that refs make mistakes. But seemingly every decision that went against Honduras elicited the "Chiquidracula ladrón” cry. And went much further.
“They are going to steal our world cup place away from us.
We didn’t get that call because we didn’t pay him enough.
“The ref won’t get paid if Honduras wins.
“If Honduras doesn’t win, I’ll let you all know where he is staying tonight.”
I guess Mr. Nasralla convienently forgot Carlos Costly’s clear handball in his first goal vs. Mexico. I have always found that when complains about the ref, the ref for the next one may not be as attentive. And that happens when a ref’s life isn’t threatened.
Passions run deep in Honduras. Let’s not forget that they went to war with El Salvador after a qualifier prior to the 1970 World Cup. They have a great team right now, and if they qualify for South Africa, they will be a huge headache for their groupmates. But if they do have a weakness, it is their reputation for having very fragile psyches, and this guy didn’t do anything to dispel that.
Pre-seasons aren’t usually a telling barometer of what is to come. But Pumas was awful in the build up, conceding an obscene amount of goals. It hasn’t changed much 4 games into the league, and they have made up for it by not scoring. They currently sit in dead last place with a -8 goal differential. They finally put a ball into the opposing team’s net last week for their first goal in over 300 minutes of play. It was not enough.
Pumas will eventually right the ship. I hope And the reality of the Mexican Primera’s parity is that they can get hot enough to go from worst to first in about a month. The current table topper, Morelia on 10 points, can just as easily slide down the shoot over the next few weeks. Tomas Boy’s crew has been playing very well lately, which is very surprising when we take into account how young the team is. And coincidentally, Morelia was my pick to win it all. But only because I literally picked them at random.
Like last year, Tuca will be using the kids for the Concachampions. They responded with a less than convincing 1-0 win over an overly defensive Comunicaciones squad from Guatemala. I was hoping that some of these youngsters would make the most of their chance and eventually press the starters for some PT. Didn’t really happen. But considering how bad the first teamers are doing, he might as well use the kids in the local league as well.
Homer announcers don't bother me at all. Hey, I am even part of a very partisan crew that calls Longhorn football games in español. We may be biased toward the ‘horns, we may not call the other teams’ touchdowns with the same enthusiasm, and we may question decisions made by the referee, but we would never ever claim that the refs are thieves, in Texas’ pocket, or the Big 12 wants Texas out of the championship game, which is why that holding call nullified that last touchdown. And we certainly wouldn't threaten bodily harm.
Enter Honduran announcer Salvador Nasralla. He was not happy at all with FIFA's decision to have a Mexican ref, Marco Antonio Rodriguez, as the official for last week’s Ticos-Catrachos tilt. It was the third Honduras game in row with a Mexican ref. He believed that ref would influence the result in Mexico’s favor because Costa Rica was Mexico’s next opponent.
If there is a constant in footie, it’s that refs make mistakes. But seemingly every decision that went against Honduras elicited the "Chiquidracula ladrón” cry. And went much further.
“They are going to steal our world cup place away from us.
We didn’t get that call because we didn’t pay him enough.
“The ref won’t get paid if Honduras wins.
“If Honduras doesn’t win, I’ll let you all know where he is staying tonight.”
I guess Mr. Nasralla convienently forgot Carlos Costly’s clear handball in his first goal vs. Mexico. I have always found that when complains about the ref, the ref for the next one may not be as attentive. And that happens when a ref’s life isn’t threatened.
Passions run deep in Honduras. Let’s not forget that they went to war with El Salvador after a qualifier prior to the 1970 World Cup. They have a great team right now, and if they qualify for South Africa, they will be a huge headache for their groupmates. But if they do have a weakness, it is their reputation for having very fragile psyches, and this guy didn’t do anything to dispel that.
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Honduras can suck a fat one.Posted 19 Aug 2009 at 10:55 PM by Alva 
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Don't people in Honduras have bigger fish to fry right now? Isn't their puppet coup government making them seem like an old fashioned Banana Republic? Of course they are going to try to start a football controversy, god forgive and the people of Honduras actually worry about real problems, like the fact that their democratically elected (even though it sucked big time) government was overthrown all Graham Green style.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 03:45 AM by StingerC
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The President was removed from office by order of the Supreme Court after violating the constitution of Honduras...but knowing that would require that one actually look for the truth, which is apparently beyond you and the mainstream US press.Quote:Originally Posted by StingerC
Don't people in Honduras have bigger fish to fry right now? Isn't their puppet coup government making them seem like an old fashioned Banana Republic? Of course they are going to try to start a football controversy, god forgive and the people of Honduras actually worry about real problems, like the fact that their democratically elected (even though it sucked big time) government was overthrown all Graham Green style.Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:19 PM by uniteo
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And we're all sure their Supreme Court justices were completely untainted.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 12:41 PM by LordRobin
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If you know anything about Latin America you would know that Supreme Courts have famously been bastions of the upper classes and puppets for people like these in these nations. If it was, as you say, such a democratically and fair process, how come every government in the world, the UN and the Organization of American states have decried what happened? Again, i doubt the supreme court of any CIVILIZED country would order the army to take the president of that country out of his house in his pajamas and fly out under the threat of bodily harm to another country.Quote:Originally Posted by uniteo
The President was removed from office by order of the Supreme Court after violating the constitution of Honduras...but knowing that would require that one actually look for the truth, which is apparently beyond you and the mainstream US press.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 01:41 PM by StingerC
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Not wanting to turn a soccer blog into a politica one, I'll make an exception for this point. The elected president of Honduras was attempting to violate the constitution of the country by holding an illegal referendum to dispell the constitutionally mandated term limit of one term as president. The Honduran congress went to the supreme court to protest, and the supreme court rulled that the president was in viloation of the constitution and ordered him removed.
Did the supreme court overstep in ordering him deported? yes. Could it have been resolved differently? probably. Was the president trying to subvert the constitution? yes.
So I wouldn't worry to much about the transfer of power down there, it hapened mostly like it should.
And back to soccer - there is never a reason for the ref to be threatened, and I would hope that the 'announcer' is suspended for that. But I know it's a pipe dream.Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 03:20 PM by todler
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This is very similar to what many Mexicans are saying to the Americans for their complaints after the Azteca game.Quote:Originally Posted by Alva
Honduras can suck a fat one.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 04:07 PM by Oldsmobile
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Wait a minute. I've heard of sore losers before, but didn't Honduras win that match 4-0?
Obviously, if the ref was against them, it didn't have much of an impact.Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 04:21 PM by argentine soccer fan 
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Let's leave the politics out of this and look at what the Honduran "journalist" did: he displayed a willingness to incite violence because of refereeing decisions he disagreed with. That's just plain wrong. A journalist should have some type of ethics, some form of journalistic integrity to not cross that line. Trash the ref all you want but to threaten to give the name of the hotel where the ref was staying is hooliganism. This kind of journalism is trash, and he only puts his country in a negative light. I wish Honduras well in their political struggles and even in the Hexagonal (of course, not against Mexico), but anyone who justifies what this guy did, especially when Honduras won 4-0, can shove it.
Posted 20 Aug 2009 at 04:50 PM by El Chanclas
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