2024-07-25 13:03:10
In its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Argentina lost a match that will go down in history for an unprecedented event that forever tainted the organizers of the event with shame: almost two hours later, the referee of the match disallowed the goal that decreed Argentina’s tie and forced the teams to return to the field to play three more minutes, in which Javier Mascherano’s team could not reverse the 2-1 with which Morocco celebrated its first victory. “What we had to experience is regrettable,” said the president of the AFA, Claudio Tapia, in a statement in which he announced that the entity filed a complaint with the FIFA Disciplinary Committee so that “the pertinent regulatory measures are taken and a sanction is imposed on whoever or whoever is responsible.”
“It’s the biggest circus I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mascherano summed up what the Argentine team experienced in its Olympic debut. It seemed that the U23s had found a draw with a taste of feat when they scored the final equaliser after 15 minutes of added time. A header from Cristian Medina after two rebounds off the crossbar sealed the 2-2 against Morocco, in a very weak match, even though self-respect had allowed them to come back from a 0-2 that seemed definitive midway through the second half.
However, the poor organisation of the French team was revealed by the number of Moroccan fans who entered the pitch before the match had finished. Not only that, the Argentine players suffered violence from the Moroccans, who threw glasses and bottles, and even a firecracker that landed very close to the players. Therefore, the decision was made to go to the locker room, as the situation on the pitch was not under control.
If the role of the organisation was already questionable up to that point, what followed was nothing less than a disgrace. For more than an hour, the match remained unfinished, with the players in the changing rooms not knowing whether it had finished, whether it would continue or whether it had been resolved. In fact, the official website of the Games declared the match to have ended with a 2-2 draw after Medina’s goal.
Then, the unusual happened: almost two hours after Medina’s goal, the decision was made to continue the match, but before that, referee Glenn Nyberg decided to check the play in the VAR. It was there that he found that Bruno Amione had half a foot forward at the time of Otamendi’s previous shot that hit the crossbar and for that reason he disallowed the goal: 1-2 and three minutes left in which nothing changed. The embarrassment was already committed.
“What happened is a scandal. It’s not a local tournament, it’s the Olympic Games,” complained Mascherano, who said that during the hour and a half that the team was in the locker room they didn’t tell him what was happening, and also assured that the suspension was due to the incidents at the end. “The match was stopped seven times, that’s never happened to me as a player. Security failed seven times,” complained the Argentine coach. “We don’t like these things to happen, we don’t expect them to benefit us or anything, but we don’t expect them to make fun of us like today,” he concluded.
“It’s a historic embarrassment. Something like this has never happened before,” said captain Nicolás Otamendi. “Morocco didn’t want to play and neither did we. We waited an hour and forty minutes but nobody said anything to us. It makes you feel impotent because it’s the Olympic Games,” complained one of the three oldest players in the national team.
Football was missing before
But before the scandal, there was a match, and Argentina was already out of ideas. Everything that the Albiceleste team lacked in football, it made up for in its strength to go in search of a draw that it did not deserve given the way the game developed. During the first half, Argentina did not shoot at goal and went into the break at a disadvantage because Morocco scored in the last play of the half and went 1-0 up after a brilliant assist from Akhomach that Soufiane Rahimi solved by beating Rulli.
At the start of the second half, Akhomach stole the ball from Otamendi, entered the area and caused a penalty from Soler, which Rahimi was responsible for scoring to make it 2-0, which seemed exaggerated but was due to Argentina’s apathy in the first half.
At that point, Mascherano’s team was not playing well, although the changes improved their attitude. And so they gradually overtook a Morocco that forgot how to play and just let time pass. Then Giuliano Simeone scored the goal, coming in at the far post to deflect a shot from Soler.
While the game was interrupted by the invasion of Moroccan fans, Argentina was hoping to equalise with plays from the wings. Until the action that ended with Medina’s goal came and caused one of the most unusual events ever recorded in a football match.