Lionel Messi’s black anger against the referee during the defeat in Paraguay

Lionel Messi got angry with the Brazilian referee of the Paraguay-Argentina match (2-1) by accusing him of not having sent off an opposing player in crude terms.

Argentina conceded its second defeat during World Cup qualifying in the South America zone, Thursday in Paraguay (2-1). And as during the first setback in Colombia in September, the vice-world champions fulminated against an arbitration decision against them. Lionel Messi first and foremost. The Argentine captain lost his temper with Brazilian referee Anderson Daronco when the latter had just whistled for half-time, pointing at him and making rather rude remarks in his direction.

“You shit yourself, I don’t love you”

“You’re shitting yourself, I don’t love you,” he said according to several Argentinian media. The eight-time Ballon d’Or deplored his decision not to award a second yellow card, synonymous with red, to defender Omar Alderete for a foul (37th) on him when he had made the difference. His frustration turned into anger when the same Alderete, Getafe player, scored Paraguay’s second goal (2-1, 47th) giving his team victory.

Lionel Scaloni, Argentinian coach, also lashed out on his sidelines at the referee’s leniency. But he preferred not to add any more at the press conference. “I can say a lot of things,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense and it would sound like an excuse. I’d rather not say it so it’s not an excuse and people don’t interpret it that way. That’s it, we’ve all seen what happened on the pitch. But that has nothing to do with the result. That’s all, I learned a lot from those things. It seems like we’re making excuses. wants to justify something and people can interpret something else.

Beyond this decision which made him furious Lionel Messi had a frustrating evening by hitting the post twice on long free kicks. Argentina opened the scoring with Lautaro Martinez (11th) before being overthrown by goals from Antonio Sanabria (19th) and Alderete (47th). Despite this setback, it remains first in the ranking with three points ahead of Colombia.