One thing you have to love about sporting matches is when a coach over-analyzes a situation and then it completely backfires on them. It usually isn’t as obvious as say when a player makes a mental error, but the beauty to coaching mistakes is that they were often well thought out which is often the problem with them in the first place.
There was a classic example of this earlier in the week when the U.S. matched-up against Costa Rica. The first half couldn’t have gone any better for Costa Rica and head coach Rene Simoes. The club had two fantastic goals scored and at halftime they were cruising to a 2-0 victory. But good ol’ Rene couldn’t just let the game play itself out.
In the second half Costa Rica began the classic foot shuffle game as they continued to slow down the play with any opportunity given. Many Costa Rican players flopped around on the ground like thespians (including their goalie in the first half on a play of only a little contact), but the real crime would not come until the near end of regulation.
In minute 88 winning 2-1, Costa Rica decided it was the perfect time for a substitute. This is fine because is is a necessary part of the game. But what was not necessary was the way in which Costa Rica went about the substitution. The player did the classic old man walk to the sideline and Simoes himself began to slowly fidget with his substitution book intentionally taking up time.
The result was Simoes was ejected (but still to this point Simoes had not cost his club the game). It was his three minute tirade on the sideline in which Washington police had to escort him off the pitch that really saved the U.S. With five extra minutes after the 90th minute, it would end up being the perfect amount of time for the U.S. to achieve the draw.
So what was an act of slowing down the game by Simoes resulted in the U.S. having more time to score.
