Egypt’s coach blamed 'injustice' after Argentina’s comeback. His team’s collapse said otherwise

ROBERTO SCHMIDT via Getty Images

ATLANTA — We should be feeling sorry for Egypt. We should be using what happened here to have an urgent discussion about the disaster that is VAR and whether officiating bias at the World Cup makes it orders of magnitude more difficult for underdog teams like Egypt to beat the brand names like Argentina.

But we can’t.

Because Egypt blew it. And there should be no tears or excuses for a team that blew it as egregiously as Egypt blew it.

And because they blew it in a way that will melt minds for generations, it's no surprise Egypt wanted to talk about anything but its own failure to close the deal after Argentina had advanced to the quarterfinals with an epic 3-2 victory that will be talked about as long as they play World Cups.

“Ordinary life, normal life is unfair, but why isn’t there any fairness in sports?” Egypt coach Hossam Hassan said. “I’m not convinced with this outcome. I’m not convinced with the way things unfolded during this match. I do not want to try to put it nicely here with beautiful wording and say ‘hard luck’ and so on and so forth. We have been treated unfairly. We have suffered injustice.”

The postgame scene was surreal. Hassan was throwing around the word “rigged” and being asked by a reporter whether his comments at a pregame news conference Monday in support of Palestinians turned the game’s referee against Egypt. Mostafa Ziko, who had a goal taken off the board by a video review, said the World Cup was being “rigged” for Argentina.

This was the emotion of the World Cup spilling out, a country that has never been to a quarterfinal and was irrelevant in soccer for seven decades unwilling to tip its cap to the tenacity of Argentina’s comeback or point the finger at itself for what happened.

And you have to feel for them. They may even have a point.

But this is equally true: When the Pharaohs’ second goal went in with 23 minutes and some stoppage time left, it should have been over. Not just the end of the game, but the end of Argentina as reigning champs — and the end of Lionel Messi in the World Cup. As the clock ticked toward the 75th minute, the 77th and the 78th with no sign of the lead cracking, it felt momentous: Egypt, which hadn’t been past the group stage since 1934, heading to the quarterfinals and mighty Argentina going back to Buenos Aires.

Egypt had pushed past the threshold of excuses, dragging the game to the point where only an unfathomable meltdown could produce any other outcome. It should have been the greatest story of this World Cup. But in the end, it didn’t even take Moses — just Messi — to part the seas.

“If you analyze the match, it was always Argentina’s match, but they had really good moments,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “They’re a really good team, they have great players, but apart from (a penalty kick that they didn’t convert), I think we had three or four clear chances in the first half so if we were to (go) up 1-0, no one would question that. But you don’t get a goal and they’re two goals ahead and they feel comfortable, so you have to keep digging and digging and digging and that’s what we did.”

The first Argentina goal, almost out of nowhere, seemed harmless enough. Time was on Egypt’s side and the game still in their control.

Then came Messi’s bolt from the blue, a strike so quick and through so much traffic that only sheer luck could have stopped it. It was a disaster, but one Egypt could have lived down had it lost in extra time or penalty kicks.

But when the third goal came from Enzo Fernandez in stoppage time — a rather innocent-looking play that never should have ended up in the back of the net if Egypt was organized defensively — it made it very difficult to have the conversation that soccer desperately needs to have.

VAR, to put it plainly, is out of control at this World Cup. From using it to retroactively issue a red card to USMNT’s Folarin Balogun on a play that wasn’t even called a foul on the field, to Croatia’s equalizer against Portugal being taken off the board because a sensor in the ball detected a hand graze that put the play offsides to what happened to Egypt on Tuesday, it’s taking away great moments and altering outcomes unnecessarily.

Technology is supposed to make fans more confident the right calls are being made. Instead, it’s doing the opposite.

When you’re using VAR to take away an Egypt goal because it spotted Marwan Attia stepping on the foot of Lisandro Martínez nearly 100 yards behind the play — contact the referee saw in real time and didn’t call a foul — you’re messing with the integrity of what happens on the field.

It’s one thing when replay is used to help referees make a call like whether a basketball is goaltended or whether a hockey player is offsides that can be difficult to determine at full speed. But when we’re rewinding 10 seconds before a goal to nitpick how a counterattack started, it becomes too easy to pick and choose who gets that benefit of the doubt.

If roles were reversed, would that goal have been taken away from Argentina? It’s ugly to speculate about, but that’s the mindframe Egypt was in — because it sure seemed like every close call, every shirt tug, every collision went against them down the stretch. Hassan said he believed Argentina’s third goal should have been taken off the board if the same standard to take away Zico’s goal had been applied.

“What I told the referee is that ‘This is unfair. This is unfair,’” Hassan said. “Maybe he has something to hide. Whoever has something to hide sometimes fails to hide what he is hiding and this was exactly what I felt during that conversation. I promise you, from the moment I go back (to Egypt), I’m not going to continue following the matches of this World Cup. This is my internal fight, my internal objection, my own way of speaking up and standing up. I’m not going to watch a single match of this tournament.”

Hassan’s passion was compelling and will resonate with a lot of fans who believe that FIFA wants a star like Messi in the tournament as long as possible or that African teams don’t get the same benefit of the doubt as soccer royalty.

But not a single time did Hassan say that Egypt could have done more, that it should have defended better, that it made too many mistakes down the stretch. That’s also reality.

Was Egypt robbed? Maybe. But a 2-0 lead at that point in the game should have been enough for Egypt to hold on. When you completely collapse in 15 minutes, it should be hard to blame anyone but yourself.