Lionel Messi has a long, dark history with referee Mateu Lahoz from their shared games in the Spanish La Liga. The ref was assigned to officiate the quarterfinals game between Argentina and a Netherlands. In 120 minutes plus change, Lahoz matched the yellow card World Cup record of 16 that was set by Portugal and Netherlands in 2006. Lahoz was on top of everybody but Messi thinks Lahoz has a fixation against him. After winning in a dramatic penalty shootout, the captain was more interested on going after his old pal.
This is what Messi said right after the shootout ended with cameras in front of him, he also spoke with TyC Sports: “A lot of joy an relief. We suffered far too much due to how everything progressed. Argentina play when we need to play, we run a lot when we don’t have the ball. We needed this joy. I don’t want to talk about the ref because you get sanctioned after but they can’t assign a referee who is not at this level. He is the World Cup’s worst ref, by far. The reason he awarded 10 added minutes is because he wanted them to draw the game. We are all enjoying this step by step, we need to keep taking these games forward. I’m really happy.
Mateu Lahoz spared Messi a yellow-card handball
On the other hand, there was a moment when Messi could’ve gotten a yellow card due to an intentional handball. On the replay we posted below, the handball is quite evident. Messi did get a yellow card for something else, Mateu Lahoz endangered Messi’s potential participation in the final. If he gets booked against Croatia and Argentina win, Messi is not playing the most important game of his career. Naturally, the Argentine was pretty riled up after the game. He was antagonistic against the ref, and also afew Netherlands players.
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