THE FIRST American Woman To Referee A Men's World Cup Match 🏆

Key Match Controversies
- The Germany vs. Ecuador Missed Foul: In the third minute of the game, German midfielder Aleksandar Pavlović committed a high boot that struck the face of Ecuador’s Pedro Vite. Penso chose not to call a foul, and Germany scored immediately after the incident. The goal stood, prompting furious protests from Ecuador's players and coaching staff.
- The Overturned Penalty: In the 46th minute of the same match, Penso awarded a penalty and a yellow card against Ecuador. However, after a VAR review triggered by Joe Dickerson, she reversed her decision due to a foul in the build-up. While many praised her transparency and willingness to correct the mistake, critics pointed to it as another error in a high-stakes match.

Crack❤ pure joy

One of the WORST refereeing performances of the 2026 World Cup. She didn't even call a foul when a player CLEARLY kicked another in the face—an incident that should have been a CLEAR penalty. She made incorrect calls on other plays, too during the game. Let's hope this person DOESN'T officiate a SINGLE match in the 2027 World Cup.

She was awful 😂 charity case

I watched her in the Columbia match she refereed. Her performance was great. In my opinion and experience, female refereeing in a soccer match is a great thing. Because boys put their emotions, egos, and pride on check, they listen more to their fellow teammates. They complain less. I think this is because they all have mothers, girlfriends, and sisters. Also, female referees control their emotions and make the best critical decisions on the spot, especially when there is a men's foul compared to a women's foul. She may disagree.

She was horrible

Not falling in line with some of the misogynistic idiots in this comment section... I don't think it has anything to do with gender but I only saw her referee the Ecuador V Germany game and didn't think she had a particularly good one. Amongst the worst refereeing performances in the world cup imo, though the standard outside of Argentina games seemed very high overall.

Big up to you and all the ladies on the pitch 🫶🏿

She had a good first game but an awful 2nd game as ref. It's too bad she's known more for the 2nd game, but I think that's because people want her to fail

She didn't do that great in that game. Can we keep the games gender exclusive please? Thanks.

Ecuadorian player gets kicked in the head and the goal stands. She was staying in the German team hotel.

She was useless, have her ref division 3 to learn the game

I mean congrats to her and all but she did watch someone get kicked in the head and didn't call a foul, which led to a goal.