{"id":530443,"date":"2026-07-08T01:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T01:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530443\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T01:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T01:29:14","slug":"world-cup-2026-egypt-fume-at-injustice-and-make-messi-favouritism-claims-after-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/530443\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Egypt fume at ‘injustice’ and make Messi favouritism claims after exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 12 minutes of normal time remaining, Egypt stood on the cusp of their greatest ever World Cup result.<\/p>\n

The Pharaohs led Argentina, the reigning world champions, 2-0 in Atlanta Stadium.<\/p>\n

A quarter-final spot – their first – beckoned for the football-obsessed African country. <\/p>\n

Then it went wrong very quickly. Horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

When Cristian Romero reduced the deficit in the 79th minute, it was a case of Egypt digging in and getting over the line. But they looked panic-stricken when captain Lionel Messi – who else? – made it 2-2 four minutes later.<\/p>\n

Enzo Fernandez then completed a remarkable Argentina turnaround with a header in the second minute of stoppage-time to send their fans wild with delight.<\/p>\n

Egypt were down and out<\/a> – and downright furious after the video assistant referee (VAR) ruled out a second goal by Mostafa Zico for a foul after midfielder Marwan Attia was penalised for slightly stepping on Lisandro Martinez at the start of the move, when they were leading 1-0.<\/p>\n

They were also adamant Mohamed Salah was fouled in Argentina’s penalty area, seconds before the reigning champions broke for the winner.<\/p>\n

When French referee Francois Letexier signalled full-time, many of Egypt’s players slumped to the floor in disbelief at what had just happened.<\/p>\n

In an explosive interview after the game, Egypt boss Hossam Hassan said his side had been “treated unfairly” and “suffered injustice”. BBC Sport has approached Fifa for comment.<\/p>\n

“There have been a lot of things to be questioned on and off the pitch,” added Hassan.<\/p>\n

“Negative aspects all around. It’s just about credibility, lack of credibility with how things unfolded.<\/p>\n

“Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running.<\/p>\n

“The world champion received support at every level. There seem to be pressures from the Argentina side on this outcome.”<\/p>\n

This match had everything – a penalty save, a disallowed goal, a red card as well as a thrilling comeback.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport unpicks a game that will go down in World Cup history for featuring a team who were two goals down so late on, but who went on to win without needing extra time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 12 minutes of normal time remaining, Egypt stood on the cusp of their greatest ever World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-530443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}