While there were many hopeful Canadians watching the national team duke it out with Argentina on Tuesday night, their dreams of upsetting the world’s top squad in the Copa America semifinal encounter were dashed.
And while the defending World Cup champions finished two goals ahead, the performance of one of their star players drew the ire of Canadian fans with his style of play.
Those who live in the Great White North, a land which tends to celebrate tough hockey players, were aghast at having to watch Rodrigo De Paul writhe around on the turf on several occasions throughout the evening as though he had been run over by a train only to continue to play.
At one point in the evening, De Paul was left writing on the ground in pain, after an apparent foul by Canadian midfielder Stephen Eustaquio. Replays showed that it was a phantom touch sent the Argentine to the ground tumbling in pain.
While De Paul is probably public enemy No. 1 after his performance, the Chilean referee stands a close second after he rewarded the Argentine’s acting with a bevy of free kicks.
The antics from the Atletico Madrid forward continued later on, eventually prompting Canadian forward Ismael Kone to tap a ball into his back. Naturally, this jolted him into action, causing the referee to break out a much-deserved yellow card. (To be fair, most other refs likely would have whipped out a red card once the Canadian showed his frustration in such a manner.)
A short time later, after De Paul has somehow recovered from his injuries, he then begins to talk smack to Canadian coach Jessie Marsch.
All of his ire has caused his to catch plenty of heat on X, formerly known as Twitter, with fans asking for investigations, while also asking for the Argentine to get an Oscar for his performance.
Even Spanish fans were expressing their distaste for his on-field antics.
Someone even went so far as to change the Argentina forward’s page on Wikipedia.
So while Canadians lament in what could have been, they can also take a second to enjoy one fun fact about Tuesday night’s referee.
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