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Posted on 07/07/2026 9:09:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Egypt coach Hossam Hassan said his team was the victim of an "injustice" in its 3-2 World Cup round-of-16 defeat against Argentina, suggesting FIFA wanted Lionel Messi to "stay in the running" at the competition.
Reigning world champions Argentina fought back from down 2-0 to win the game following a stunning late intervention by Messi, who created one goal and scored another.
But Egypt were furious at having a goal disallowed following a VAR review and then a subsequent failure to check on an apparent foul by Alexis Mac Allister in the immediate buildup to Enzo Fernández's stoppage-time winner. And Hassan said Egypt were beaten by "external factors" as well as events on the pitch.
"We looked better than the reigning champions -- better in everything -- but the result was influenced by internal factors on the pitch and external factors off it," Hassan told reporters. "Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running.
"In football, there are sometimes external factors that go beyond the technical aspects. The world champion received support at every level."
The referee for the match was France's François Letexier, whom Hassan said his team had objected to ahead of the showdown. The coach was further upset that the video assistant referee didn't feel a need for Letexier to review the apparent Mac Allister foul.
"There seem to be pressures from the Argentina side on this outcome," he said. "We were objecting to the selection of the referee because of the French situation [Argentina beat France in the 2022 World Cup final], but everybody has to suffer at some point, and we suffered.
"We haven't seen respect or fair play. A penalty was ruled out [an alleged foul on Mo Salah]. It was not even checked by the VAR, and our second goal was remarkably, for whatever reason, disallowed.
"I want to put it in beautiful words and say, 'Hard luck,' but we have been treated unfairly and it has been an injustice," he said.
Hassan was involved in a verbal confrontation with Letexier at the end of the game, and he said he accused the official of "having something to hide."
"What I told the referee was, 'This is unfair,'" Hassan said. "I said maybe he is carrying a scar or has something to hide.
"If somebody is trying to hide something, they often fail to hide it."
Egypt forward Mostafa Zico said it was difficult to watch the match slip away.
"Hard luck. The match was in our hands and slipped away at the last moment," he said. "Strange things happened on the pitch.
"We were hard done by [the referee] today, and everyone saw that. I won't talk about something like this. We were winning 2-0. After the 2-0 result, everything went against us and worked against us. I don't even know why the second goal was disallowed, I don't see any reason for it. But we must look for a solution so that a second goal doesn't come. He wanted to disallow the third one too, but thank God, God didn't grant him success."
Zico said Egypt did not take the win for granted when they scored the second goal.
''No, we didn't. It wasn't in our calculations that the match was already over," he said. "We know very well that we are playing against the world champions, and even before the match started, we knew we were playing a strong team, a team that is a title favorite.
"But I mean, if they had won by their own effort, it would have made a big difference to us."
Egypt goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir said he was proud of how the team fought until the last minute.
"Of course, some mistakes happened from all of us in the last 10 minutes," he said. "But in the end, we are also playing against the world champions."
Egypt reserve goalkeeper Mohamed Alaa echoed Zico about how the disallowed goal affected the match.
"The refereeing was obvious in front of everyone. I won't talk about it. The refereeing was clear. We had a goal disallowed, and we had a penalty. The penalty was turned against us into a counterattack goal," he said. "The objections were only toward the referee, meaning regarding the refereeing errors.
"That's what we were objecting to, nothing more than that. Captain Salah entered the locker room, gathered all the players and spoke with them. He said, 'Hard luck, it's over. It's God's decree and what he willed happened regarding what took place. Let's build on this, and what's coming will be good, God willing.'"
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Glad that Argentina won.
Argentina is one of the teams chosen as likely to win the whole thing.
It’s just a game.
In the Muslim Arab world, pride is more important than life itself.
Anything that “happens” to the Arabs will always be called an “injustice”.
They ALWAYS blame everybody else for problems or faults because they are never intellectually honest. Bottom line.
You are not kidding. I had to listen to an Egyptian couple bemoan US support for Hosni Mubarak when he was president, and the money USAID was given to him.
I told them we don’t run their country, Egyptians do. They responded by saying all elections are corrupt there.
I finished with: “We took care of tyrannical government in our history. Now it’s your turn.” That ended the conversation.
The Egyptian team can’t practice in this country anymore; they will have to return to Cairo practice, while drowning in de Nile.
The Muslim Arabs are a rabble who never opt for positive change.
Way back in WWI, T.E. Lawrence (”Lawrence of Arabia”) who lived and fought with the Arabs and Bedouin against the Ottoman Turks said either in the 1962 movie or in reality in 1917:
“So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are”.
This statement coming from a man who championed the “Arab Cause”!
Woohoo! 🎉🎉
Maybe their team really Sphinx
They can go back to Mummy!
It’s a wrap!
I like Argentina more than Egypt but I believe the Egyptians were robbed.
Perhaps if the Egyptian team waves more Palestinian flags…they’ll win next time?
100% agree. The disallowed goal raises a serious question, at what point do you move past something that happened prior to a goal? Is it time or distance? Both? How long, how far? Is it at the moment of a change in possession?
Should we review EVERY goal to see if there’s a “foul claim” that should be reviewed prior to the goal?
This isn’t what VAR was for. By this standard, you could foul, get possession from it, control the possession with 30 passes, minutes later, then score - only to have it disallowed. It can only lead to inconsistency and make people believe it is all fixed.
Yeah, a boring game. This one at least had 5 goals scored. I quickly turned over to one and it was 65 minutes into the game. The score was 0-0, oops, nil-nil.
Regardless of all the talk about the referee's calls and non calls, Shobeir played a fantastic game. Argentina could have had five goals.
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