Things got weird in the U.S. versus El Salvador soccer match in the Gold Cup last night a game won 2-0 by the Americans.

Both Jozy Altidore and Omar Gonzalez alleged they were bitten by Salvadoran players and Altidore said he also had his nipple twisted by his biting attacker, Henry Romero.

(Embedded at this link is video of the incidents involving Altidore.)

The U.S. Soccer Federation apparently has a photo of teeth marks in the shoulder of Gonzalez and has turned it over to officials of the continental championship.

It led to some amusing/damning quotes from the U.S. side.

Said Altidore: “My girl is mad at me. She’s mad at me, she’s mad at Romero. She’s like, ‘Only I can bite you; only I can grab your nipples’.”

Added veteran goalkeeper Tim Howard: “You can’t go around biting people. That’s crazy. [Nipple twisting], that should be allowed, but the biting, no good.”

Howard’s comment was not entirely serious, in his condoning of nipple twisting, but it does point to a feeling in the game that biting is significantly beyond the pinching realm and is, thus, never acceptable.

Luis Suarez of Uruguay and Barcelona is the Count Dracula of soccer, when it comes to using his teeth as weapons.

He has been suspended three times for biting — seven matches for biting Otman Bakkal of Eindhoven in a Eredivisie match, 10 for biting Branislav Ivanovic of Chelsea in a Premier League match and four months for biting Giogio Chiellini of Italy during the 2014 World Cup.

Perhaps he served as an inspiration to El Salvador’s players.

Soccer may be catching up to water polo as the sport best known for furtive dirty play.

Polo offers malefactors a significant degree of immunity in that most of the game is played beneath the water — where all manner of kicking and scratching and grabbing goes on, largely unpunished. A polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union at the 1956 Olympics was so violent that it is remembered as the Blood in the Water match.

Soccer is another game filled, unfortunately, with attempts to cheat, from simulating contact in the hopes of gaining a penalty kick, to elbowing, pinching and, yes, biting.

Some leagues are worse than others. Some competitions are worse than others. Concacaf’s Gold Cup, for example.

Said Altidore: “Concacaf never ceases to amaze me. It is what it is. I shouldn’t be saying, ‘These things happen,’ but they do.”