In a much-needed win for both Mexico and Cameroon, it was Mexico who stepped up their game and took the three points in Natal. It was a game filled with bad calls, goals being denied, an almost given penalty by Mexico, beautiful save coming from Memo Ochoa and rain, lots of rain. Since the referee blew the whistle to start the game, Mother Nature never stopped from giving rain during the match.
Coach Miguel “El Piojo” Herrera had a great starting lineup with Oribe “El Cepillo” Peralta and Giovanni Dos Santos in the front line and creating some beautiful plays along with Miguel Layun, Paul Aguilar and Hector Herrera. The game kicked off at 9AM and since the beginning Mexico dominated the game. There was a lot of great passing, great defense which is something Mexico lacks on, nice crosses and two beautiful goals by Dos Santos that were denied by the side referee. In the 11th minute, there came a beautiful cross from Hector Herrera, which we saw Gio kick it in the net and right when he was about to celebrate, the side ref lifted up his flag calling offsides. When the replay was shown you could clearly see that Dos Santos was not offsides. Again in the 30th minute, we saw a cross from a corner kick that bounced off a Cameroon player and landed right in front of Dos Santos to head it in the net but again was called offsides by the side referee. Again we saw that clearly Gio wasn’t offsides especially since the ball had bounced off the Cameroon player.
The first half ended with two goals being denied to Mexico. A lot of controversy was talked during halftime, but Mexico moved on and came in even stronger in the second half. Cameroon had some opportunities but the Mexico defense was just too good. It was in the 61st minute when Gio and Oribe became the heroes for the Mexico national team. Herrera gave a beautiful pass to Giovanni Dos Santos and went for the goal but bounced off Cameroon’s goalkeeper and Peralta came from behind to shot it in the net and give Mexico the 1-0 lead.
Mexico had many other opportunities to make the lead bigger one in stoppage time from Chicharito Hernandez on a pass from Miguel Layun that should of gone in but both players didn’t have good control of the ball. In stoppage time, Cameroon had a chance to score with a header from Benjamin Mouka into the net but Memo Ochoa flew from his position and caught the ball with his hands.
Oribe gave Mexico the game winning goal and their first win in this world cup. Mexico is now 5-1-1 when it comes to opening matches and Cameroon hasn’t won a match since 2002, according to the announcers and ESPN. Mexico is now atop with Brazil with 3 points, and Cameroon is with Croatia with 0 points. Mexico will face Brazil in their second match of the group stage on June 17, 2014 and Cameroon will face on Croatia.