KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The U.S. men’s national team was officially eliminated from the 2024 Copa America on Monday night after a 1-0 loss to Uruguay.
But when the game ended, a difficult moment between U.S. captain Christian Pulisic and the referee perfectly summed up how frustrated they were with how the match played out at Arrowhead Stadium.
Pulisic was seen almost taunting referee Kevin Ortega as he tried to encourage him to go celebrate with Uruguay on the field. Then, after Pulisic shook hands with a linesman, Ortega refused to follow suit.
Kudos to Reddit for this, Fox Soccer edited this video showing Pulisic gesturing to the referees to go celebrate with the Uruguay team, but they cut the beginning because they are clearly feeding off the angry sentiment, getting those impressions and crafting the narrative. https://t.co/M6w75yLawd image.twitter.com/a3Nzpe4UEQ
— Douglas Reyes-Ceron (@dreyesceron) July 2, 2024
“Yeah, he didn’t shake my hand,” Pulisic said after the game. “But that’s normal, I guess.”
While there were plenty of decisions on Monday that could be criticized, fair or not, there were two main instances of questionable moments with the refereeing in the match. One of them led to Uruguay’s only goal.
In the second half, Uruguayan Mathías Olivera was just offside when he scored, which was confirmed by the video referee. However, by the time the Fox commentators were speaking during the replay, it seemed clear that he was one of two players offside, which would have disallowed the goal.
In the first half, there was a moment when Ortega called for a foul, but then, surprisingly, let play continue. Ortega called for a foul on U.S. defender Chris Richards and clearly pulled out a yellow card to call it, but suddenly overturned it as Uruguay continued to play and nearly scored a goal. Tim Ream managed to recover and clear the ball, but the rest of the U.S. team had stopped play by the time Ortega made his first call.
Pulisic’s frustration seemed to boil over in the final moments of the match. He was seen yelling at Ortega and chasing him around after a foul was not called against him in added time.
“Honestly, I saw things today that I’ve never seen before, right in front of my eyes, that I can’t really believe,” Pulisic said. “That’s not why we lost. We’re not out of this tournament because of the refereeing. But really, I’ve seen things that… really, I mean… I don’t know what I’m seeing, I don’t know what they’re sanctioning, he’s not giving any explanation, he’s doing things that I just can’t… I can’t accept.”
Pulisic was not the only one to criticise the refereeing after the match. Antonee Robinson also criticised the officials, especially when it came to the yellow card incident in the first half.
“It was exhausting,” Robinson said. “The referee clearly has no idea what he’s doing, he doesn’t know how to control the game… This referee was awful. I’ve never seen a referee allow a quick free-kick while he had a yellow card in his hand. It’s literally embarrassing. And I hope something happens to him for that.”
As Pulisic and Robinson pointed out, the U.S.’s elimination from the tournament was not due solely to the referees’ performance. Last week, in the group stage, the Americans fell 2-1 to Panama, making the game against Uruguay a virtual must-win.
But with several questionable moments and the handshake incident at the end, it’s no wonder Pulisic and others were upset with the officials on Monday night.
