Embarrar la cancha

[aleCcowaN]

"Cancha" is Southern Hemisphere for playing field, from Kechua, kancha, meaning a fenced area, an enclosure.

"Embarrar la cancha" (literally "muddying the playing field") is used in sports when the home team damages portions of the playing field in order to make difficult any move of the best players from the visiting team. Figuratively, it's used when someone, in a debate or politics, try to damage the common field in order to stall the advance of the opposite party. It's more passive than the proverbial spanner/monkey wrench in the works ("poner palos en la rueda") because it is not intended to stop the workings -which are the common field here- but to make the situation more onerous to the opposite party.

Is there any popular phrase in English to describe the same figurative sense?