Referee Daniele Orsato's performance in charge of Croatia's defeat to Argentina has drawn criticism from Luka Modric.
Due to their 3-0 loss to their South American opponents on Tuesday night, Modric and his nation were unable to advance to the World Cup final for a second time in a row.
They had a strong beginning and even held the advantage for the opening thirty minutes of the first half. Even so, Argentina was awarded a penalty kick after Dominik Livakovic fouled Julian Alvarez inside the box, and Lionel Messi converted it to give Argentina the lead.
Whether or not a penalty was given was in question, and Modric was sure that the Italian referee created a little too much controversy with his decisions.
He remarked, “Argentina was a fair winner of the game; they were better; they deserved to win; yet, these things have to be mentioned; I generally don’t do them, but today they have to be done.”
“I don’t like to talk about referees, but this is one of the worst. I don’t have a good memory of him; he’s a disaster. For me, it wasn’t a penalty.
“Despite this, I don’t want to detract from Argentina. The penalty killed us. We must recover for the third place play-off and win that game.”
In addition, just before the penalty, Croatia should have been awarded a corner, but instead, Argentina was given a goal kick.
According to Mateo Kovacic, the referee made two major errors in both calls.
The Chelsea midfielder continued, “Both situations seem incredible to me, first that he did not give a corner and then that. I never talk about the referees, but they are huge errors, and it cost us.”