Embarrar la cancha

Embarrar la cancha
 

"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?

Google throw a curve ball. I think embarrar la cancha is similar in meaning.
BTW cancha, a I know it, is a corn kernel.

Thanks. To throw a curve ball is an active action unlike embarrar la cancha which is more like crear condiciones desfavorables.

If the action harms everyone, including the proponent himself, then maybe to poison the well might fit

You're right, I had forgotten that. It's much more drastic than embarrar la cancha but it works in a few circumstances.

I find very difficult to find in English all what is around buena fe and mala fe. Something so basic and important for the continental cultures is blurred as a concept. Embarrar la cancha is more evidence of mala fe than of aggression.

Then how about to foul the nest?

That's a new one to me, thanks!

It seems to match our "escupir el asado", to damage something valuable to our own, sometimes in order to avoid the opponent to take advantage of it.

"Embarrar la cancha" implies to damage common grounds where the opponent is known to do better than us.

That's the beauty of learning other languages: you study two and end up having 150% of the vocabulary of one.

Busqué la frase en Google para ver algunos ejemplos de su uso, y sigo sin entender muy bien qué significa exactamente. Había un ejemplo en que parecía ser ensuciar el nombre de alguien (en ese caso, del fiscal Neymar), otros en que parecía ser algo como el inglés muddying the waters - intentar confundir un asunto mezclando reivindicaciones o afirmaciones irrelevantes, y otros que que ni siquiera era claro de qué acusaban a los oponentes políticos.

"Muddy the waters" (enturbiar las aguas in Spanish) is OK in several circumstances, but I'd use it more in a context of trying to conceal something of trying to stump the actions of somebody.

About "ensuciar/enlodar/embarrar la memoria" are set phrases used to describe when some dead person is criticized and charged with false accusations.