{"id":11029,"date":"2025-06-16T23:37:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T03:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/boca-juniors-fury-over-controversial-penalty-in-draw-vs-benfica\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T23:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T03:37:17","slug":"boca-juniors-fury-over-controversial-penalty-in-draw-vs-benfica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/boca-juniors-fury-over-controversial-penalty-in-draw-vs-benfica\/","title":{"rendered":"Boca Juniors Fury Over Controversial Penalty in Draw vs. Benfica"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Controversy in Boca Juniors&#8217; Debut at the Club World Cup<\/h2>\n\nBoca Juniors players, Agust\u00edn Marches\u00edn and Miguel Merentiel, expressed their dissatisfaction with the refereeing decisions in the match against Benfica in their debut at the Club World Cup. The match, played at Hard Rock Stadium, ended in a 2-2 draw, leaving a bittersweet taste for the Argentine team.\n\nThe focus of the controversy was the penalty awarded in favor of the Portuguese team, which, according to Boca players, altered the course of the match. The Argentine team had achieved a 2-0 lead in the first half, with goals from Merentiel and Rodrigo Battaglia, before the referee signaled the penalty.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I don&#8217;t know what the referee saw. I&#8217;ve known him for a long time. It doesn&#8217;t surprise me either. It didn&#8217;t seem like a penalty to me; later, you have to watch it more calmly. But in a game like this, to be called for that penalty is a disgrace. You have to keep going, this is football and that&#8217;s how it is.<\/p><cite>Agust\u00edn Marches\u00edn<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nMerentiel agreed with his teammate, pointing out that the referee&#8217;s decision affected Boca Juniors&#8217; performance in the match.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The penalty somehow affected the match and I think it affected us a bit. They were awarded the penalty at the end of the first half which ruined the match. From inside, personally, it didn&#8217;t seem like a penalty to me. The referee is there, he decided it was a penalty and we obeyed the order he gave at that moment.<\/p><cite>Miguel Merentiel<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nThe tension between both teams continued in the second half, with the expulsions of Andrea Belotti (Benfica) and Jorge Figal (Boca Juniors) after receiving the red card.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F0617%2Fr1507588_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n\n\n<em>Boca players protested after referee C\u00e9sar Ramos&#8217; decision to award a penalty to Benfica following a video review.<\/em>\n\nOutside the field, Hard Rock Stadium vibrated with the presence of 55,274 fans, with a notable majority of Boca Juniors supporters. Thousands of fans, dressed in blue and yellow, created an atmosphere similar to that of La Bombonera in Miami Gardens.\n\nBenfica player \u00c1ngel Di Mar\u00eda acknowledged the pressure exerted by Argentine fans, praising the atmosphere created in the stadium.\n\nBoca Juniors will return to action on June 20, facing Bayern Munich at Hard Rock Stadium, in the second match of the group stage.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Controversy in Boca Juniors&#8217; Debut at the Club World Cup Boca Juniors players, Agust\u00edn Marches\u00edn and Miguel Merentiel, expressed their dissatisfaction with the refereeing decisions in the match against Benfica in their debut at the Club World Cup. The match, played at Hard Rock Stadium, ended in a 2-2 draw, leaving a bittersweet taste for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4016,787,400,2500],"class_list":{"0":"post-11029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-boca-juniors","9":"tag-club-world-cup","10":"tag-penalty","11":"tag-referee"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}