It was an eventful night for Argentina, holding on to a thrilling win on penalties against the Netherlands to set up a semifinal date with Croatia. The Dutch had rallied from two goals down, with substitute Wout Weghorst scoring a brace, but they ran out of steam in the penalty shootout.
There was much drama on the field, thanks to card-happy referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz. The ill-tempered match saw 18 yellow cards – a record for a World Cup match. Two of these went to Dutch defender Denzel Dumfries, who was consequently given the marching orders.
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni called the game "ugly".
Messi was critical of the Spanish referee, saying: "I don’t want to speak about referees because after they will sanction you. But people saw what happened. I think FIFA must take care of this. It cannot put a referee like that for a match of such magnitude, of such importance. The referee cannot fail to be up to the task," Messi said after the match.
Argentine goalkeeper and penalty-shootout hero Emiliano Martinez, too, criticised the performance of the Spanish referee, saying he "was giving everything for" the Netherlands team.
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"He gave 10 minutes (of stoppage time) for no reason, he gave them free kicks outside the box two or three times," Martinez said. "He just wanted them to score. That's basically it.
"I hope we don't have that referee any more. He is useless."
Lahoz's past controversies
This is not the first time, Lahoz has kicked up a row with his refereeing. Interestingly, Messi was at the receiving end in two instances.
In a Barcelona versus Osasuna match on Nov 29, 2020, Messi paid tribute to Diego Maradona by taking off his jersey after scoring a goal, to show Newell’s jersey underneath, one of the teams that Maradona played for in his career. Much to the dismay of the fans, Lahoz booked Messi for removing his jersey.
Next, when Barcelona played against Atletico Madrid in the 2013-14 La Liga tournament, Lahoz disallowed a Messi goal. The match ended in a 1-1 draw and Atletico went on to win the title. Lahoz later apologised to Barcelona for wrongly disallowing the goal, the team’s then assistant manager Elvio Paolorosso said.
Lahoz had also sent Pep Guardiola off for dissent during Manchester City’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against Liverpool in 2017-18.
It is only the second time Argentina has reached the last four since 1990. In 2014, Messi was part of the team that lost to Germany in the final.
