Lionel Messi insults ‘coward’ referee in half-time meltdown, Scaloni calls official ‘shameless’
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Lionel Messi had a night to forget as Argentina crashed to a 1-2 defeat vs Paraguay, in Asuncion on Friday. Cameras captured the Argentina captain visibly frustrated with Brazilian referee Anderson Daronco, with head coach Lionel Scaloni even calling him a 'shameless' official.
The issue stemmed from an incident at the 32nd-minute when Paraguayan defender Omar Alderete received his first yellow card. Then five minutes later during a counter-attack, Alderete brought Messi down to the ground. But the referee decided to ignore it and didn't hand a second yellow to the defender, leading to an angry reaction from Scaloni on the sidelines.
Then at the end of the first-half, Messi confronted the referee to express his frustration over the missed call. Messi could be seen pointing his finger at the referee and was heard calling him a 'coward'.
Argentina got the lead 11 minutes into the match when Enzo Fernandez's deep pass found Lautaro Martinez, whose shot was initially ruled out for offside, but was eventually awarded after review from VAR. Then Paraguay came close with an equaliser moments later as Gustavo Gomez's header hit the crossbar.
Then in the 19th-minute, Gustavo Velazquez's cross found 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 came close to equalises 20 minutes before full-time, but failed to control the ball after a counter-attack.
Speaking after the match, Scaloni said, "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 team always tries, it stands up for itself in the matches. The players don't give up on a ball. We will then analyse what we can do better. Peru will be a completely different rival, but it is also difficult. We are going to prepare well and hopefully we can bring joy to the fans. We're looking to have depth with the arrival of Garnacho. He's good at playing these kinds of games. Castellanos's arrival was good, he has interesting moves and we're happy he's with us. We trust in what we have been doing," he added.
