Portugal’s Pepe tells FIFA to ‘give Argentina World Cup’ after Lionel Messi complaining
Portugal star Pepe has sensationally told FIFA to “give the World Cup title to Argentina now.”
The defender took aim at world football’s governing body after Lionel Messi had complained about the official who took charge of Argentina’s quarter-final victory over the Netherlands on Friday night. Pepe was in action in Qatar on Saturday night but saw his World Cup come to an end after Portugal were defeated by Morocco in the last eight.
The only team that played football was us. We’re sad. We had quality to be able to win the World Cup and we couldn’t. Ninety minutes that Morocco always wanted to stop our game. The referee not giving yellow, not paying attention and the game was that.
“We tried to play, put the ball on the ground, the balls they recovered was kick forward and try to win the second ball. They then had the happiness of scoring the goal. But I’m proud of my comrades. We’ve done a lot to win today. I think there’s a penalty on Bruno [Fernandes]. It seems very expensive.
leave with sadness, because we had the capacity to win this World Cup. The feeling and arrogance of the referee on the pitch, I can bet all that I have that Argentina will be champions. For what he did today. An Argentine referee. Of nine referees, five who were on the field today are Argentines. What else can I say? Let’s see at the end to see who’s going to win.”
Messi scored a penalty during the 90 minutes and then converted again in the penalty shootout as Argentina overcame the Netherlands on spot kicks. And after the match, the legendary player said: “I don’t want to talk about referees because then they will sanction you. But we were scared before the game because we knew what was coming [with the referee Mateu Lahoz]. I can’t say what I think but FIFA have to look at this. [FIFA] cannot put a referee like that on this game when he is not up to the level.