Efrain Juarez attacks Cruz Azul for his complaints against the arbitration
Efrain Juarez criticized Cruz Azul's position of questioning the work of the refereeing by ensuring that it is the team that has benefited the most in the league.
Efrain Juarez, Pumas coach, strongly criticized the decision of the Cruz Azul board to challenge the appointment of whistler Daniel Quintero Huitrón for next Sunday's duel in the definition of the title of the Clausura 2026 tournament, ensuring that the celestials are the most benefited by the refereeing.
Juarez did not hold anything back at the end of the first leg of the grand final where the Pumas managed to emerge victorious in the visit to the Ciudad de los Deportes stadium with a goalless draw and where there was a controversial action where a penalty was not scored against Cruz Azul due to Carlos Rodríguez's offside of course.
"As for the (refereeing) resolution, I spoke yesterday about the referees at the conference, I don't want to touch much on the subject. What does surprise me is that an institution as large as Cruz Azul, one of the most important and largest in this country, always wants to take advantage of circumstances when in this Liguilla those who have benefited the most have been them"
"We must not forget, minute 30 against Atlas, a handball, a penalty and they do not score it, we must not forget the penalty against Chivas, we must not forget Fernández's handball; they did score me against América and they did not and they still have the audacity to complain"
"Because it is audacious to go and complain when they are here due to those circumstances, because if not, Chivas would be fighting in another circumstance. It seems to me that the category of this institution is impressive and they surely do it with the intention of giving the referee a hard time. I think that today the referee does a spectacular job and on Sunday it will be like that."
The plays that Efraín Juárez forgot
In his claim, the Pumas coach, Efraín Juarez, forgot to mention that during the first game, referee Ismael Rosario López Peñuelas missed Rubén Duarte's tackle on José Paradela from Cruz Azul, where the VAR was not even used to review the play.
In the second controversial play, where in the action of the penalty invalidated to Carlos Rodriguez, the whistler commits a serious mistake in the interpretation of an action that comes from a rival and that, logically, the offside should have been invalidated and gave way to the penalty kick.
Instead, said whistler went to the dresser to review the action in the VAR and not analyze the play carefully in a clear failure of refereeing capacity.