Panama players and coaches were none too pleased with their controversial 2-1 Gold Cup defeat to Mexico Wednesday. Their head coach, Hernan Dario Gomez, held nothing back in his postgame interview, calling the loss a “vile robbery” (via BBC Sport):
“I’m shocked. At one moment in the match I thought of retiring from football. I won’t because of the group [of players] I have.
“It’s the first time this has happened to me, it’s hard, I was saying to myself ‘I don’t want to carry on any longer in football because this was a vile robbery’.”
Of course, the outrage spilled over to the homeland, with newspaper covers going in hard on referee Matt Geigger:
Panama newspaper clearly unhappy with referee Mark Geigger for giving Mexico 2 late penalties and therefore victory. pic.twitter.com/WrMh65vCLd
— Sport Witness (@Sport_Witness) July 23, 2015
However, it wasn’t just the men on the field who were irate. As you can see below, the there were also frustrations in the stands as Panama and Mexico fans came to fisticuffs in a mini-brawl.
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According to a fan account, the root of the issue may have started because of a man hitting a woman:
Heres the story behind the fight: Panama woman keeps arguing with Mexico woman. Her man hits the Mexico woman and the Mexico fans step in.
— Bradley (@BradOnTheBeat) July 23, 2015
