Ref for the Paraguay game sounds canny

[Gemmill 46141]

This handsome beast is World Cup referee Marco Rodriguez - who will take charge of England's opening group stage game against Paraguay.

 

And that news has been greeted with alarm by our man in Mexico - his home country.

 

David Walsh takes up the story: 

 

Marco Rodriguez, without doubt is the worst referee I have ever seen. He makes Uriah Rennie look like Pierluigi Colina.

 

Rodriguez or "Chiqui Dracula" (Little Dracula) as he is known here is a very controversial figure in Mexico.

 

My first experience of Chiqui was seeing him send off six players at a Tigres game in 1999.

 

I've seen him on numerous occasions since and he has sent off at least one player in every game. His darkest three hours though came in the 2005 Mexican finals: 

 

Club America were losing 1-0 in the 90th minute when one of their players fell, yards from an opposing player. Chiqui awarded the most amazingly unjust penalty in history and Club America went on to win the title.

 

In the second final hot favourites Monterrey had three players inexplicably sent off and went on to lose. Chiqui had to have an armed police escort round the clock when he officiated there this season.

 

Chiqui was actually the standby ref for Germany, but last week it was announced that the first choice was " injured."

 

I just know Chiqui will take great pleasure in sending Beckham, Owen or any of our stars off - so place your bets on the first red card being in the England v Paraguay game - Crouch getting sent off for the robot dance is a distinct possibility!

 

PS - re: the Dracula nickname, someone in FIFA obviously has a sense of humour, judging by their pen picture of Rodriguez which mentions that he "has cut his teeth on some tough Concacaf group qualifiers". Presumably using "sharpened his fangs" might have been a bit(e) too obvious..

 

Nicked from NUFC.com. He also looks like Dracula, but you can't nick the pic off their site.

[MattM4 0]

David Walsh takes up the story: 

 

Marco Rodriguez, without doubt is the worst referee I have ever seen. He makes Uriah Rennie look like Pierluigi Colina.

 

oh dear... but to be honest I would expect no less from a world cup ref

 

[Geordie Boyo 24]

With all the European experience most of these players have they should be able to cope and know what to expect so we shouldn't see any frustration to a degree where it will affect our moral...or so I'm hoping...!