“It wasn’t for us to go to extra time and much less to penalties”
MADRID, 10 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The captain of the Argentina team, Leo Messi, was “happy” this Friday for his team’s pass to the semifinals of the World Cup in Qatar, after beating the Netherlands in a penalty shootout, at the same time that he harshly criticized the referee Spaniard Mateu Lahoz, for “not being up to the task” of the quarterfinals of a World Cup.
“I think it wasn’t for it to end like this. I don’t want to talk about the referee because then they sanction you, but I think people saw what it was. We were afraid before the game because we knew what was going on with him. FIFA cannot put a referee like this, because it is not up to par,” said the player in statements to Gol Mundial, collected by Europa Press.
The Argentine analyzed the game and recognized that his team did not deserve to play extra time, much less the penalties. “It wasn’t for us to go to extra time and much less to penalties. We suffered too much, but hey, it’s a quarter of the World Cup. We suffered when we had to and in the end we passed,” he said.
Messi recognized that they needed this “joy”. “We showed game by game that we know how to play with the same intensity and desire, that we want to be protagonists and that we understand the moments of the game. We are very excited and we needed this joy for ourselves and for these people who are with us,” he said.
In addition, the Argentine ’10’ praised the figure of ‘Dibu’ Martínez, after stopping the first two penalties of the shootout. “We had no doubts about ‘Dibu’, we knew we had an advantage with him on penalties and he showed it like that, he’s very good,” he acknowledged.
Finally, the attacker analyzed his next rival in the semifinals. “The semifinal game is going to be very tough. Croatia showed that they are a great team, they played Brazil equally. They have very good players and a team that has been working with the same coach for a long time, it’s going to be tough.” , he concluded.