Mexico coach Herrera lets rip at Robben, referee, FIFA after defeat
FORTALEZA, Brazil --
Mexico's second-round curse at the World Cup remains unbroken, and coach Miguel Herrera is pointing the finger firmly at Netherlands winger Arjen Robben, the match referee and FIFA.
Playing in the round of 16 for the sixth straight tournament, the Mexicans looked like they had finally done everything right against the Netherlands on Sunday.
Their rigid defense was holding the free-scoring Dutch at bay, goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa made some spectacular saves, and their string of first-half chances produced a goal from Giovani Dos Santos just after the break.
It all unraveled in the 88th minute.
Ochoa couldn't be everywhere at Arena Castelao, and Wesley Sneijder finally beat him with a shot aimed low. A few minutes later, Klaas Jan Huntelaar won it for the Dutch, scoring an injury-time penalty to make it 2-1 after Arjen Robben was taken down by Rafael Marquez.
"The boys are very sad. It was really very painful to go out this way," Mexico coach Miguel Herrera said. "We were eliminated because of an invented penalty.
"Robben did three dives and he should have been cautioned. You should caution a guy who is trying to cheat, and then if Robben did it again, he would be sent off.
"And why did FIFA choose a referee from the same confederation as Holland instead of one from South America, Asia or Africa?
"The doubtful decisions were always against us. We have to say it in capital letters, in three matches we had horrible refereeing. The man with the whistle knocked us.
"I want the referee committee to take a look and that the referee goes home just like us."
He also acknowledged, however, that his players lost their concentration in the final minutes of a match that was stopped twice for official cooling breaks.
Herrera also blasted organisers for making the teams play in the heat and humidity of a 1pm kick-off in Fortaleza.
He added: "What goes against football is to have to play in these conditions. The players were suffocated by the sun heat and the humidity."
There was extra time added at the end of both halves, with official cooling breaks allowed for the players due to the extreme conditions at the Estadio Castelao.
Herrera felt his side gave the initiative back to Louis van Gaal's men by dropping deeper as Holland pressed for a leveller.
He told reporters: "We'd done really well. Then the team sits back and we start to give chances to a team that had not done anything.
"It's a World Cup where everything was against Mexico.
"Unfortunately, we didn't achieve what we wanted."
Mexico has played at all but five of the 20 World Cups, reaching the quarterfinals as host in both 1970 and 1986, but has been unable to better their record since last hosting the tournament 28 years ago.
On Sunday, the Mexicans excelled against a favored opponent that came into the game outscoring their group rivals 10-2. Mexico, using a 5-3-2 lineup, had only conceded once.
Ochoa was the main reason why.
And the Mexico goalkeeper was a key factor again on Sunday, making a seemingly impossible save in the 57th minute by getting his body in the way as Stefan de Vrij stabbed at the ball. The shot hit the goalkeeper and then bounced off the post.
Nine minutes later, the 28-year-old Ochoa crouched to block a goal-bound shot from Robben, who ran down the right and jumped clear of Marquez.
But shortly after Sneijder scored, Ochoa guessed wrong on Huntelaar's penalty, diving the wrong way and sending Mexico home.
"It isn't easy to go out this way, the way this match went," Ochoa said. "It's just very hard to deal with when victory escapes you this way.'"Out of the four matches here, in all of them, the refereeing was disastrous.
