Mexico Held to Scoreless Tie by Colombia

In its second uninspired performance in eight days, Mexico was held to a 0-0 tie by Colombia on Wednesday night in a soccer international played in front of 28,764 fans at the Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix.

The sloppy, unattractive game was made worse by American referee Ricardo Valenzuela’s inability to stamp his authority on the match. Because of Valenzuela’s reluctance to issue yellow -- or even red -- cards, the fouls were frequent and the flow of the match was constantly interrupted.

Mexico, which was defeated by Argentina, 1-0, at the Coliseum last week in Coach Ricardo Lavolpe’s first game in charge, looked only marginally better this time around, and only because of the influential presence of French-based defender Rafael Marquez.

Colombia seemed intent on defending in the first half, seldom venturing forward and instead simply absorbing whatever pressure Mexico could apply, which wasn’t much.

The best scoring chance fell to Mexico’s Luis Ernesto Perez, but his shot-on-the-turn flew high in the 24th minute, adding another miss to those he had in the Argentina match.