Mohamed slams Liga MX refs: “They send your best player off for no reason”
César Huerta was ordered off as Pumas fell by the minimum to Necaxa - complicating their chances of direct qualification to the playoffs.
Universidad Nacional were surprised by Necaxa in Aguascalientes, losing 1-0 to the team at the bottom of the Liga MX table and with it, their aspirations to directly enter next month’s playoffs took a severe knock. César Huerta’s controversial sending off on 13 minutes left the Pedregal team facing most of the game with a man less and Auriazul coach Antonio Mohamed was furious at being left without his best player, apparently for no reason.
“Before Chino Huerta was sent off, nothing happened; after Huerta was ordered off we had more or less a whole game to play. You can’t analyze a game when something like that happens - when they send off your best player without even making a foul, it’s very difficult,” the Pumas’ coach said afterwards.
Mohamed hopes Pumas will bounce back
Despite suffering two consecutive defeats (to Monterrey and Nexaca), El Turco, faithful to his style, was determined to focus on the positive rather than bemoan dropping three points: “It always hurts to lose, let’s hope to recover for the next game. We will continue to build up our strength for the three games that are left. I always say that we will do the maths at the end,” the coach concluded.
Pumas’ board will wait for the Federation’s decision on what punishment Huerta will serve before lodging an appeal. The good news is that Nathan Silva has now completed his suspension and will be available for the next match, against León on Tuesday night.