Written by Juan Pereira

Photo from Juan Pereira

On the 28th of February, Houston hosted its last Concacaf Women’s Gold Cup games of 2024. The inaugural edition of the competition took a trip down to Shell Energy Stadium. The two games in question were Canada versus Costa Rica, the first match of the day, and Paraguay versus El Salvador, which was the second. These pairs of games had some extra drama, because as it turns out, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico had identical records in group play, which opened the possibility of a coin toss to decide who would continue in this tournament, as long as Paraguay won their match. Confusing? Don’t worry, everyone in the press box was confused as well. Nevertheless, I will try to recap the action from these games without spoiling the absolute chaos that ensued at the end. 

In the first match, Canada dominated possession and were the clear favorites throughout. In the 11th minute, Jordyn Huitema opened the scoring for Canada. It was a nice header into the near post. In the 27th minute, the first of two corner kick goals happened, both scored by the same player. Shelina Zadorsky scored a header that was delivered cleanly to the far post. 

In the 57th minute, it was rinse and repeat when a corner kick found Zadorsky again in the far post. Now, here is where the real fun begins. If this game finished 3-0, and Costa Rica was handed another yellow card, Puerto Rico would advance on the yellow card differential. However, no yellow cards were handed after that point, which opened up a terrifyingly exciting prospect. A coin flip (or a 50/50 draw, but that doesn’t sound nearly as exciting)! If Paraguay beat El Salvador, then Puerto Rico and Costa Rica would be tied in points and in tiebreakers. 

In the second game, Paraguay were the clear favorites over El Salvador, who had a massive group of fans show up to the game. However, the Salvadorian faithful were treated to an 18th minute Paraguay goal from Jessica Martínez due to a penalty call in the box. 

The rest of the first half featured some sloppy play of both sides, and El Salvador were able to hold their own against a tough opponent in Paraguay, In the second half, all hell broke loose when El Salvador were awarded a penalty in the 68th minute, which was scored in the 69th minute by Samantha Fisher. And then, in the 83rd minute, Danielle Fuentes scored the second goal for El Salvador, which sent their fans into a frenzy. For 3 whole minutes, Puerto Rico was through to the next round and Costa Rica was out… until Paraguay scored in the 86th and 88th minutes, both by Jessica Martínez, who had a hat trick. Only in Concacaf… 

Directly after the game, credentialed media were led to the conference room, where 2 clear balls were placed with white slips of paper inside. There would be a draw. The room went silent, only being interrupted with an awkward camera flick. As Concacaf officials went into the room, people knew that history was happening. For such a tension packed event, it was straight forward: an official drew one of the balls, and it had “Costa Rica” printed on it. Puerto Rico was out, and Costa Rica was in. Cameras shaked. People silently gasped. And a magical night ended, just like that. 

Looking back on these games, chaos was rampant, but it was a fun form of chaos. I am gutted for Puerto Rico, but that is just the luck of the draw. Quickly, I want to say thanks to Theo

Lloyd-Hughes (@theolloydhughes), who was killing it with the coverage from the press box. Without him manually explaining to me what was going on with the 50/50 draw, I honestly don’t know if I could have understood the history that was unfolding. 

Writing this piece was hard, because recently, Houston sports media lost one of their own. Maggie McKethan was an exemplary journalist, but an even better person. Whenever she spoke to players, you saw her personality shine through. This season won’t be the same, because Maggie won’t be there in the press conferences and in the press box. I know she would have liked to see these games. I want to send my condolences to Maggie’s family and colleagues who knew her better than I did; we will miss you Maggie.