December 10, 2022, 2:22 PM
December 10, 2022, 2:22 PM
The captain of Portugal, the experienced center back Pepe, questioned the arbitration of Argentine Facundo Tello after the elimination this Saturday of his team in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in Qatar at the hands of the surprising Morocco (1-0).
“It is inadmissible that an Argentine referee whistled at us today after what happened yesterday with Messi and Argentina talking” about the judge, the 39-year-old defender told television after the game played at the Al Thumama stadium.
“I’m not saying that it would have come conditioned, But how much do we play in the second half? Any. Their goalkeeper always stopped and (the referee) only gave eight minutes of added time,” he added.
Argentine captain Lionel Messi harshly questioned the performance of Spanish center back Mateu Lahoz during the clash against the Netherlands on Friday, which ended with the classification to the semifinals of the Albiceleste on penalties (2-2, 4-3).
“FIFA has to review that.you cannot put a referee like that for a game of this importance, which is not up to the task,” said La Pulga.
Pepe considered that Tello did not replace the appropriate thing in the second part, in which, he assured, Morocco dedicated itself to preventing Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal from developing its game.
How is he going to give eight minutes when we don’t play anything? The only team that wanted to play football was ours, Portugal,” he said. “I feel angry, they neither played nor allowed to play in the second part.”
“We are sad, we had the quality to win the world championship, but unfortunately we didn’t get it,” he said.
The Moroccan attacker Youssef En-Nesyri, in minute 42, sealed the first participation of an African team in the semi-finals of the World Cup.
The surprising Morocco now he will fight for a pass to the final with the winner between England and defending champions France.
