3 things learned from Matchday 1 in Liga MX

3. Refs continue to be issue for Liga MX

Liga MX referees didn’t waste too much time earning headlines for all the wrong reasons. First it was Fernando Hernández – a 5-year vet – then it was newcomer Mario Humberto Vargas, while old-timers César Ramos and Jorge Isaac Rojas heard their fair share of criticism too.

For the past several years – and especially since the adoption of the video assistant replay – Liga MX has struggled to defend their officiating crews. Egregious game-changing mistakes, obvious blown calls and alleged favoritism were common complaints each and every week.

Arturo Brizio Carter – considered Mexico’s best ref of the past quarter-century (even showing a red card to Zinedine Zidane in a 1998 World Cup match) – is in charge of Liga MX refs now and he declared that his crew would be top-notch for the Guardianes 2020. Several young arbiters have been groomed to step in, a popular request among critics who’ve tired of the same old refs making the same old lame mistakes.

But things didn’t go so well for Fernando Hernández who was in charge of the Santos-Cruz Azul game. Less than 10 minutes in, Cruz Azul started a breakout in their own half and as Yoshimar Yotún dribbled across midfield his teammate Jonathan Rodríguez went down in a heap. No foul was called but the VAR alerted Hernández who eventually went over to the video monitor to see what all the fuss was about.

First off, the monitor malfunctioned (so Hernández was left looking at a blank screen for 2 minutes) and after nearly 6 minutes the ref came back onto the pitch and showed Rodríguez a red card. The replay clearly shows the defender scraping his cleats across the back of his opponent’s foot, above the ankle, as Hugo apparently thought Yotún had dropped the ball off to “Cabecita.”

Santos players were livid. Granted, the foul didn’t look too harsh, nor did it look intentional, but it was a foul. My take? I think fouls from behind are too often overlooked even though they are explicitly cited in the rule book. Still, in this case, perhaps yellow would have been acceptable.

In the second half, Hernández “made up” for his earlier call and showed “Cabecita” a second yellow card for a foul that didn’t deserve a caution. That only served to magnify his questionable decision-making.

In Monday’s Pachuca-América match, rookie ref Mario Humberto Vargas over-reacted, perhaps trying too hard to appear to be in charge. In minute 55, Vargas showed a second yellow to Pachuca’s Jorge Hernández, putting the Tuzos at a disadvantage. América capitalized 8 minutes later to take a 1-0 lead.

One minute after that, Vargas showed a second yellow to América’s Santiago Cáseres to make it a 10-on-10 match. Later, the ref granted América a soft penalty that basically put the game out of reach (although Pachuca scored deep in injury time to make the final score 2-1).

Both red-card decisions appeared unwarranted and could result in Vargas being skipped over for game assignments for a week or two.

Veteran arbiters Ramos and Rojas were criticized for appearing indecisive and seemingly relying on the VAR to make calls for them. That has been a constant in Liga MX, critics say, as refs hesitate to make calls in hopes that VAR will catch the fouls they fail to whistle and “correct” the situation.