What started out as a beautiful, up-tempo soccer game digressed into an ugly, fight-marred foul-fest Friday night at Harder Stadium.
Once everyone cooled their heels, the UCSB men’s soccer team fell to Mexico’s Under-20 national team in an exhibition match that was decided by a penalty-kick shootout.
The teams, which combined for 40 fouls and each had a player ejected, battled to a 1-1 draw after 90 minutes of contentious play. Referee Jesus Cisneros stopped the action during extra time at the end after the teams engaged in a bench-clearing brawl.
After giving the players a few minutes to cool off, the officials allowed the teams to break the deadlock with a PK shootout. Mexico prevailed 3-1 and left Santa Barbara as 4-2 winners.
The degeneration of the match spoiled a fierce battle between two very talented and technical soccer teams that are aiming for big things. UCSB is vying to reach the NCAA College Cup, which it is hosting in December. Mexico is preparing for U20 World Cup qualifying.
“I’m not sure why they don’t think that they might get hit in a game,” UCSB coach Tim Vom Steeg about Mexico. “I don’t think they handled that well. They responded to our physical play by doing things on the field that are outside of the game.
“Of course we’re going to be physical,” he added. “We’re not going let you trap and turn on the ball. They didn’t respond well to that.”
The referee issued 14 yellow cards in the match, nine to UCSB players. Mexico lost starting forward Eduardo Pina to a red card after he elbowed Gaucho Luis Silva in the ear in the 44th minute.
Mexico had scored the tying goal two minutes earlier.
The Gauchos held the man advantage until the 60th minute. Then midfielder Machael David was booked with his second yellow card for a late challenge and was ejected.
The first 20 minutes provided the best soccer action for the 4,188 in attendance. UCSB came out as the aggressor and worked some nifty combination plays that had Mexico’s defense scrambling. Freshman David Opoku was impressive as he fed teammates for good scoring opportunities.
“Big David came alive tonight,” Vom Steeg said of the 6-2 forward. “We’d been talking about that since the Westmont game and I thought he was a big find tonight. He played at least four or five balls in (scoring positions) that got us going.”
Opoku’s play made up for the absence of Sam Garza, who was held out of the match with a sore leg muscle.
“We didn’t want to take a chance with Garza.”
Peter McGlynn, who gave Mexico fits running up the right side, set up the first goal of the game in the 31st minute. On a run through the Mexican defense, he was hacked by Pina at the top of the penalty area.
On the resulting free kick, Silva tapped the ball off to Michael Tetteh, who found an opening in the Mexican wall and beat a diving goalkeeper Jose Romero with a low shot inside the near post.
The Gauchos created a couple of more chances to score
Silva had a great opportunity from close range but Romero reacted quickly and blocked the shot. Moments later, Tetteh missed just wide of the post after a nice cross from McGlynn.
“Everything went well,” Vom Steeg said. “The only thing that hurt us was I thought we could have been up two or three by half and instead they got one back.”
After David Ramirez hit the cross bar on a four-on-two break for Mexico, the Tricolores found the back of the net on some nice work by forward Alan Izaguirre in the 42nd minute. He held the ball and then fed Ramirez, who blasted a shot that Gaucho goalkeeper Sam Hayden blocked. Izaguirre pounced on the rebound and scored the tying goal.
Despite giving up the goal, UCSB got solid performances from outside defenders Chris Hunter and Evan McNeil.
“You have to understand the wo guys they were covering were very, very good,” Vom Steeg said of his defenders. “Those two guys up front (for Mexico), they both handled them. Evan, I thought, played very, very well on the right side for us.”
Hayden kept Mexico from winning in regulation time with a brilliant save on a well-placed free kick by Marvin Polanco late in the second half.
In the shootout, Christian Ramirez was the lone Gaucho to score. Erick Franco, Diego Rosalez and Cesar Jimenez converted for Mexico.
The game was the Gauchos’ final tune-up before the regular-season opener Wednesday at Cal State Bakersfield.
“It was a good step forward for us,” said Vom Steeg. “Obviously, it was a very competitive game.”
