Football has a long history of referees getting in the way. They stand in the wrong place, they get clipped by a pass, they take a ball in the ribs. Usually it is harmless. Very occasionally, it changes a match, and for a few seconds in Mexico City in February 2021, a referee became the best defender on the pitch.
This clip is a few years old now, but I think it is one of the great officiating moments, and it deserves a proper look. It has everything. A clear chance, a furious reaction and a punishment from the football gods.
What the Clip Shows
Cruz Azul are playing Toluca at the Estadio Azteca in the Liga MX, leading 2-0 and in complete control. Around the half-hour mark, a through ball puts Luis Romo clean through. He takes it past the goalkeeper, Luis Garcia, but with the goal gaping, his shot hits the post.
The rebound falls to Jonathan Rodriguez, who only has one defender on the line to beat. He shoots, and the ball is heading into the net. Then the referee, Oscar Macias Romo, who is crossing the box at exactly the wrong moment, sticks out a leg and diverts it wide.
The ball goes past the post. According to The Sun, he awarded a goal kick. The Cruz Azul players could not believe it. They surrounded him in protest, because the referee had just denied them a third goal.
Watch here:
Two Chances in Ten Seconds
The speed of it is what makes it so good. A Peruvian paper pointed out that Cruz Azul lost two clear chances in less than ten seconds. The first was the shot that hit the post, and the second was the rebound that the referee deflected.
There is a cruelty to that. Romo had done the hard part, beating the keeper, and the chance fell to a player who rarely misses. A team can go a whole game without a moment like that, and Cruz Azul had two in one passage of play. That the referee ended up involved in both is a piece of bad luck that is almost funny.
The Referee Is Not Supposed to Be in the Shot
I have some sympathy for officials, because their job is genuinely hard. A referee has to follow the play without getting in its way, in a stadium where the ball moves fast and the angles change in an instant. Most of the time they get it right, and nobody notices.
But this was a case where the position was wrong. He was too close to the goal, he was crossing the line of the shot, and he had no idea the ball was coming back. A referee’s first rule is to stay out of the picture. Here, he walked into it.
That is why the memes were so merciless. Fans online joked that he was the best defender in the league and that he had done more for Toluca’s goal than their goalkeeper. I laughed, and I do not think he can complain.
Why the Players Had No Argument
Cruz Azul’s players were furious, but as the Spanish news agency EFE put it, they had no real argument. It was an accident. The referee did not mean to block the shot, and no rule allows a goal to be awarded for a ball that never went in.
That is the hard part to accept. A team can feel robbed, and be right, and still get nothing. The referee’s intervention was unfair in every way except the one that matters, which is that it happened and the match had to be restarted.
There was also a small disagreement about how. The Sun said a goal kick. Another outlet said the referee restarted with a dropped ball. Either way, nobody was giving Cruz Azul their goal.
The Punishment
Football has a way of punishing those who think they have got away with it, and this was a perfect example. Cruz Azul had been 2-0 up, and the referee’s block should have been a footnote. Instead, it seemed to give Toluca a lift.
EFE said the visitors seemed to take it as a sign of good fortune. Within a few minutes, Miguel Barberi scored in the 44th minute from a Rubens Sambueza pass. Then, in the second minute of stoppage time, Alexis Canelo scored a penalty to make it 2-2 at half-time. Canelo’s goal gave him eight for the season, the most in the league at that stage.
In the space of about ten minutes, a comfortable 2-0 had become 2-2, and Cruz Azul’s manager, Juan Reynoso, had a major problem. All because a referee had stood in the wrong place.
The Winner That Saved the Referee
Luckily for everyone involved, there was a happy ending. Cruz Azul regrouped, and in the 63rd minute Guillermo Fernandez headed in an Orbelin Pineda cross to make it 3-2. It was their fifth consecutive win in the league.
As EFE put it, the goal was a salvation for the official, who was spared the responsibility of deciding the result. It is hard to imagine how he would have felt if Cruz Azul had dropped points. A referee who blocks a goal-bound shot and then sees the match slip away would have found it very difficult to live with.
How It Ended for Cruz Azul
It did not do them any lasting harm. Cruz Azul went on to win the league title that season, ending a wait of 23 years. If the referee’s block had cost them the match, it would be a famous injustice. Instead, it is a funny story told by fans who got the trophy in the end.
I think that is why the clip still circulates. Nobody was hurt, and nothing was lost. It is pure slapstick, a reminder of how ridiculous the game can be.
My Verdict
I will say what I think. The referee got it wrong, and I do not think he can be blamed for it. It was an accident, he was following the play, and he was in the wrong place for one second. The intervention was bad luck for Cruz Azul and a freak of football, not a conspiracy.
But I also do not think it should be forgotten. Football is better for moments like this. A player hits a post, a rebound falls kindly, and a man in a yellow shirt sticks out a leg. It is the kind of thing that makes you love the game and wonder what is wrong with it at the same time.
As a Palace fan, I have seen refereeing decisions go against us more times than I can count, and I know how it feels. But I also know that some of the best football stories start with a mistake. This is one of them.
