Lionel Messi had an evening to neglect as Argentina crashed to a 1-2 defeat vs Paraguay, in Asuncion on Friday. Cameras captured the Argentina captain visibly annoyed with Brazilian referee Anderson Daronco, with head coach Lionel Scaloni even calling him a ‘shameless’ official.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi talks to referee Anderson Daronco.(REUTERS)
The difficulty stemmed from an incident on the Thirty second-minute when Paraguayan defender Omar Alderete acquired his first yellow card. Then 5 minutes later throughout a counter-attack, Alderete introduced Messi all the way down to the bottom. However the referee determined to disregard it and did not hand a second yellow to the defender, resulting in an indignant response from Scaloni on the sidelines.
Then on the finish of the first-half, Messi confronted the referee to specific his frustration over the missed name. Messi may very well be seen pointing his finger on the referee and was heard calling him a ‘coward’.
Argentina received the lead 11 minutes into the match when Enzo Fernandez’s deep go discovered Lautaro Martinez, whose shot was initially dominated out for offside, however was finally awarded after evaluation from VAR. Then Paraguay got here shut with an equaliser moments later as Gustavo Gomez’s header hit the crossbar.
Then within the Nineteenth-minute, Gustavo Velazquez’s cross discovered Antonio Sanabria, who unleashed a bicycle kick to make it 1-1. Then two minutes into the second-half, Alderete headed in from a free-kick to make it 2-1 for Paraguay.
Rodrigo De Paul got here near equalises 20 minutes earlier than full-time, however failed to manage the ball after a counter-attack.
Talking after the match, Scaloni stated, “I’m not here to criticize my players, I’m here to support them. We knew it was going to be a tough game. We’re here to keep going and give confidence to many of the new players.”
“We played well in the first half, but the first action at the start of the second made things difficult. We have to congratulate our opponents, who defended very well. We are playing and we hope to get back on track.
“The workforce at all times tries, it stands up for itself within the matches. The gamers do not surrender on a ball. We’ll then analyse what we are able to do higher. Peru will likely be a very completely different rival, however it is usually troublesome. We’re going to put together effectively and hopefully we are able to deliver pleasure to the followers. We’re trying to have depth with the arrival of Garnacho. He is good at taking part in these sorts of video games. Castellanos’s arrival was good, he has attention-grabbing strikes and we’re comfortable he is with us. We belief in what we have now been doing,” he added.