Pepe, controversial after Portugal’s elimination: “They can’t put an Argentine referee in after Messi’s complaints, they can already give him the title”

Portugal’s captain, the experienced central defender Pepe, questioned the refereeing of Argentinian Facundo Tello after his team’s elimination in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Qatar at the hands of the surprising Morocco (1-0).

“It is unacceptable that an Argentine referee booed us after what happened with Messi and Argentina talking” of the judge, the 39-year-old defender said on television after the match played at Al Thumama Stadium.

“I’m not saying it would have been conditioned, but how much did we play in the second half? Nothing. Their goalkeeper always stopped and (the referee) only allowed eight minutes of added time,” he added.

Lionel Messi harshly criticized the performance of Spaniard Mateu Lahoz during Friday’s match against the Netherlands, which ended with the Albiceleste qualified for the semi-finals on penalties (2-2, 4-3).

“FIFA needs to review it, they can’t put a referee like that for a match of this importance, who isn’t up to the task”Leo declared.

Pepe felt Tello did not add enough time in the second half, in which he assured Morocco were dedicated to preventing Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal from developing their game.

How will he give eight minutes if we don’t play anything? The only team that wanted to play football was ours, Portugal.”, held. “I feel angry, they didn’t play or let them play in the second part.”

“We are sad, we had the quality to win the world championship, but unfortunately we didn’t,” he said. The Moroccan striker Youssef En-Nesyri, in the 42nd minute, signed the first participation of an African team in the semi-finals of the World Cup.

The analysis of the Portuguese, the oldest player (39 years old) who has played in this tournament, seems a bit risky. Referees are appointed 48 hours after each game. Consequently, Portugal already knew that Tello would direct them again (he had already been at the crossroads with South Korea) before the controversial refereeing of the Spaniards in the Argentina-Netherlands match. And there was no pretense.

And beyond that, the performance of the 40-year-old referee from Bahia was very correct. He had two games in which Portugal requested, in both cases the Portuguese team requested a penalty. There was no case.

As for the stoppage time, which was one of the points scored by Pepe, Tello added 8 minutes to the second half, in line with the average that was added. And what’s more, in that period he expelled a Moroccan.

GL